{ "groups": [ { "id": "G01", "name": "Asking for more money", "predicament": "You are sure you are worth far more than you are paid, and it is time to name a figure to the person who pays you.", "sentence": "A employee wants more pay from the one who pays them.", "actor": "employee", "wants": "more pay", "counterpart": "the one who pays them", "stories": [ 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 18, 20 ], "story_titles": [ "A Busher’s Letters Home", "The Busher Comes Back", "The Busher’s Honeymoon", "A New Busher Breaks In", "The Busher’s Kid", "The Busher Reenlists", "Along Came Ruth" ], "standing": { "low": 15, "middle": 10 }, "stage": "low", "members": [ { "chunk": 2, "story": 0, "predicament": "A newcomer names a high figure to an underling, gets laughed at, and must wait in an expensive city while his money runs out." }, { "chunk": 3, "story": 0, "predicament": "A newcomer tallies the cost of the new life and resolves to hold out for a big number, sure the boss will give in." }, { "chunk": 4, "story": 0, "predicament": "A newcomer who swore to hold out for a big figure is teased by the boss and signs for half." }, { "chunk": 61, "story": 1, "predicament": "Someone who has just delivered a big win vows to demand a huge raise or walk out to a rival outfit." }, { "chunk": 63, "story": 1, "predicament": "Someone who vowed to hold out for a huge sum signs for much less, and rushes into marriage with a woman who flatters him." }, { "chunk": 91, "story": 2, "predicament": "A wife persuades her struggling husband that he is worth more and should demand a raise on a deal already signed." }, { "chunk": 92, "story": 2, "predicament": "Someone who demands a raise on a signed deal is told to earn it first, and storms out threatening to join a rival." }, { "chunk": 110, "story": 3, "predicament": "Someone who swore he would never work for the boss again goes back, and tells his friend he won concessions." }, { "chunk": 112, "story": 3, "predicament": "Given a choice between behaving at the old terms or being sent away, someone is flattered into agreeing and thinks he won." }, { "chunk": 113, "story": 3, "predicament": "Someone locked into the same pay for longer takes it as a compliment, and quietly drops his threat against the boss." }, { "chunk": 150, "story": 4, "predicament": "Someone who says he never thinks about his record explains it away at length, and expects a raise despite a fixed agreement." }, { "chunk": 751, "story": 18, "predicament": "After a day of rebuffs, a man's wife suggests he return to his old work, and he names double what he earned." }, { "chunk": 761, "story": 18, "predicament": "Insisting he is finished with his old work, a man keeps quietly lowering the price at which he would go back." }, { "chunk": 764, "story": 18, "predicament": "A man casts his hoped-for return as a personal sacrifice made out of loyalty to the new person in charge." }, { "chunk": 766, "story": 18, "predicament": "A man whose written offer went unanswered explains the silence away and waits confidently by the telephone." }, { "chunk": 768, "story": 18, "predicament": "When the call he was sure of never comes, a man goes to the workplace himself and waits outside to be seen." }, { "chunk": 769, "story": 18, "predicament": "A man names his price to someone above him and gets only mockery about how little effort the job really takes." }, { "chunk": 770, "story": 18, "predicament": "Someone above you offers only a trial, as a courtesy, and advises you to accept whatever terms you are sent." }, { "chunk": 771, "story": 18, "predicament": "A man who read vague reassurance as a promise receives terms lower than he earned before he left." }, { "chunk": 772, "story": 18, "predicament": "A man protests to the top that his offer is lower than before he left to serve, and is coolly passed back down." }, { "chunk": 775, "story": 18, "predicament": "A man who held out for more signs on the original terms and tells a friend it was a victory." }, { "chunk": 812, "story": 20, "predicament": "Riding a success, a man plans to demand his promised reward, and brushes off his wife's hint that she has news." }, { "chunk": 829, "story": 20, "predicament": "After a bitter quarrel at home, a man pins his hopes on a promised raise at work to set things right." }, { "chunk": 830, "story": 20, "predicament": "Offered a reward if he wins one decisive test, a man is allowed to choose which test to face, and picks carefully." }, { "chunk": 839, "story": 20, "predicament": "Given a second chance at the reward he threw away, against easier opposition, a man takes it and crows about it." } ], "options": [ { "text": "Name a big figure and swear you will not sign for less.", "source": "scene:3", "moves": { "money": "risk", "relationships.boss": "-", "flags.held_out": "set" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Sign for what they offer, and call it a win.", "source": "scene:113", "moves": { "money": "-", "relationships.boss": "+" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Offer to earn it: a raise if you deliver on one test.", "source": "scene:830", "moves": { "money": "risk", "discipline": "+", "relationships.boss": "+" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Try to reopen a deal you have already signed.", "source": "scene:91", "moves": { "relationships.boss": "-", "standing": "-" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Find out what others like you are paid, and ask for that.", "source": "filled", "moves": { "savvy": "+", "money": "+", "relationships.boss": "risk" }, "in_group": null } ] }, { "id": "G02", "name": "Threatening to leave for a rival employer", "predicament": "You are unhappy where you are and tell yourself a rival would snap you up, though you are not sure you are free to go or that they want you.", "sentence": "A discontented employee wants to be wanted, or better paid from their employer and the rival.", "actor": "discontented employee", "wants": "to be wanted, or better paid", "counterpart": "their employer and the rival", "stories": [ 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 18, 19, 22 ], "story_titles": [ "The Busher’s Honeymoon", "A New Busher Breaks In", "The Busher Abroad", "The Busher’s Welcome Home", "Call for Mr. Keefe!", "The Busher Reenlists", "The Battle of Texas", "The Busher Pulls a Mays" ], "standing": { "middle": 31, "low": 5 }, "stage": "middle", "members": [ { "chunk": 93, "story": 2, "predicament": "Someone who stormed out on the boss, sure a rival would pay more, is soon awake at midnight in despair." }, { "chunk": 94, "story": 2, "predicament": "Someone who counted on a rival outfit hiring him is told his signed agreement with his present boss rules him out." }, { "chunk": 95, "story": 2, "predicament": "Someone who has burned his bridges with both sides insists the boss will regret it, and wishes he had never climbed." }, { "chunk": 104, "story": 3, "predicament": "Someone who may be moving to a rival outfit daydreams about carrying them to glory and humbling his old one." }, { "chunk": 107, "story": 3, "predicament": "Someone sure he is free to leave is told by an underling that the boss will keep him rather than help a rival." }, { "chunk": 108, "story": 3, "predicament": "A man stuck waiting on the boss's decision plans to threaten him with a rules breach while borrowing from a friend again." }, { "chunk": 234, "story": 6, "predicament": "Someone planning to walk out on a trip expects the bosses to pay his way, threatening to defect if they refuse." }, { "chunk": 280, "story": 6, "predicament": "Someone humiliated and broke far from home at the holidays swears to quit his calling for work where he is respected." }, { "chunk": 375, "story": 7, "predicament": "Someone who believes a rival outfit is courting him announces he is leaving, sure the bosses will regret underpaying him." }, { "chunk": 380, "story": 7, "predicament": "Someone secretly planning to leave for a rival daydreams of glory, keeping it from both his boss and his wife." }, { "chunk": 390, "story": 7, "predicament": "Someone certain of a lavish new position plans to ask his future boss for special favours before starting." }, { "chunk": 391, "story": 7, "predicament": "Someone who tells the boss he is leaving is sure the boss is secretly devastated, despite his calm reply." }, { "chunk": 392, "story": 7, "predicament": "Someone announces to the boss he has a lavish offer elsewhere, and the boss answers with open sarcasm." }, { "chunk": 393, "story": 7, "predicament": "A man leaving on the strength of a hoax thinks the boss is heartbroken, and feels sorry for leaving him in the lurch." }, { "chunk": 402, "story": 7, "predicament": "Someone chasing a promised position finds no one there has heard of it, and has to track down the man himself." }, { "chunk": 403, "story": 7, "predicament": "Someone learns the lavish offer he staked everything on was a hoax, and storms off as if he were the one refusing." }, { "chunk": 404, "story": 7, "predicament": "A man whose defection collapsed tells the boss he has kindly decided to stay, and takes the boss's joke as praise." }, { "chunk": 426, "story": 8, "predicament": "Taken off a job and mocked by his boss, a man threatens to quit for something nobler, then finds reasons why he cannot." }, { "chunk": 755, "story": 18, "predicament": "A man with no real prospects decides to let offers come to him and play the bidders off against each other." }, { "chunk": 759, "story": 18, "predicament": "Still idle weeks later, a man claims to be weighing several offers, and imagines he could outdo the people who judge his old work." }, { "chunk": 760, "story": 18, "predicament": "A man who claims to have left his old employer drops by on a pretext, hoping to hear they want him back." }, { "chunk": 773, "story": 18, "predicament": "Told that nobody else would want him either, a proud man storms out, taking the rejected offer with him." }, { "chunk": 774, "story": 18, "predicament": "Days after storming out, a man announces he is going back after all, and claims his silence forced their hand." }, { "chunk": 802, "story": 19, "predicament": "Swearing to quit after being shown up by someone above, a man is soon boasting that he will be chosen for the biggest occasion." }, { "chunk": 878, "story": 22, "predicament": "A man watches a colleague walk out on a failing employer and be rewarded for it, and concludes loyalty is for fools." }, { "chunk": 879, "story": 22, "predicament": "Imagining himself in demand elsewhere, a man vows to walk out at the first slight, while quietly drinking to excess." }, { "chunk": 890, "story": 22, "predicament": "A man sure a rival employer wants him hears only a teasing remark from its head, and takes it as encouragement." }, { "chunk": 891, "story": 22, "predicament": "Floating the idea of walking out to a rival's head, a man is told politely there is no way they could take him." }, { "chunk": 892, "story": 22, "predicament": "A man reads a rival's wink and a joke as a secret promise of a place, and starts planning around it." }, { "chunk": 893, "story": 22, "predicament": "Warned that loose talk about quitting will reach the person in charge first, a man insists only a trusted few know." }, { "chunk": 900, "story": 22, "predicament": "A man's talk of quitting reaches the person in charge through a rival's jibe, and he is told he may go." }, { "chunk": 902, "story": 22, "predicament": "Kept waiting in the wings without being used, a man announces he is quitting and has already approached a rival." }, { "chunk": 906, "story": 22, "predicament": "In the middle of a public failure, a man walks off the job and announces he is going to a rival." }, { "chunk": 907, "story": 22, "predicament": "Having walked out, a man waits for his old employer to beg him back, and hears nothing at all." }, { "chunk": 908, "story": 22, "predicament": "Waiting on a rival's offer that never comes, a man imagines himself being haggled over, while his savings run low." }, { "chunk": 909, "story": 22, "predicament": "A man who expected to be fought over learns he has been handed off cheaply, and at once praises his new employer." } ], "options": [ { "text": "Tell the boss you are leaving for the rival.", "source": "scene:392", "moves": { "relationships.boss": "-", "standing": "risk", "flags.threatened_to_leave": "set" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Sound out the rival quietly before you say a word.", "source": "scene:891", "moves": { "savvy": "+", "relationships.rival_employer": "risk" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Walk out now and wait to be begged back.", "source": "scene:906", "moves": { "money": "-", "relationships.boss": "-", "flags.walked_out": "set" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Stay, and tell everyone it was your own choice.", "source": "scene:404", "moves": { "relationships.boss": "+", "standing": "-" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Take the grievance to the boss plainly, with no threat.", "source": "filled", "moves": { "relationships.boss": "+", "savvy": "+" }, "in_group": null } ] }, { "id": "G03", "name": "Sent down, or left on the bench", "predicament": "You have been sent down to a lesser post, or kept out of the real work, and are sure it is a mistake or a slight.", "sentence": "A demoted worker wants their place back from the one who sent them down.", "actor": "demoted worker", "wants": "their place back", "counterpart": "the one who sent them down", "stories": [ 0, 1, 2, 3, 6, 8, 11, 12, 22 ], "story_titles": [ "A Busher’s Letters Home", "The Busher Comes Back", "The Busher’s Honeymoon", "A New Busher Breaks In", "The Busher Abroad", "Call for Mr. Keefe!", "Purls Before Swine", "And Many a Stormy Wind Shall Blow", "The Busher Pulls a Mays" ], "standing": { "low": 9, "middle": 11 }, "stage": "middle", "members": [ { "chunk": 19, "story": 0, "predicament": "A newcomer is given one chance to show real effort or be sent back down, and is sure it could never happen." }, { "chunk": 22, "story": 0, "predicament": "A newcomer who survives a cut while others are dropped reads it as a vote of confidence, though still passed over." }, { "chunk": 30, "story": 0, "predicament": "A newcomer who thought no one would let him go is sent down, claims unfair treatment, and resents a quieter peer's success." }, { "chunk": 31, "story": 1, "predicament": "Someone who swore they would quit rather than accept a demotion is talked round by an old hand and swallows it." }, { "chunk": 32, "story": 1, "predicament": "Someone sent down to a lesser post tells the boss what he wants to hear while privately scheming to be rescued elsewhere." }, { "chunk": 100, "story": 2, "predicament": "Someone who came to ask for money is told flatly by an underling that he has been let go and shipped away." }, { "chunk": 115, "story": 3, "predicament": "A returning worker who has let himself go is told he is being put with the lesser group and assumes it is a joke." }, { "chunk": 116, "story": 3, "predicament": "Someone assigned to the lesser group insists the boss wants him with the elite and that newcomers must fear him." }, { "chunk": 117, "story": 3, "predicament": "Someone who insisted he knew the boss's wishes is shown the boss's written order keeping him in the lesser group." }, { "chunk": 122, "story": 3, "predicament": "Someone still kept with the lesser group explains it as the boss's confidence and sneers at the newcomers around him." }, { "chunk": 128, "story": 3, "predicament": "Someone left idle asks the boss why, and is told his condition is the problem with a joke about his size." }, { "chunk": 260, "story": 6, "predicament": "A man cautious about everything except his work is told so by the boss, and kept on the bench anyway." }, { "chunk": 334, "story": 6, "predicament": "Someone is kept idle because the boss jokes the occasion does not pay enough to justify rewarding him." }, { "chunk": 410, "story": 8, "predicament": "Someone sent home early by the boss tells himself he is being saved for something big, and his own child does not know him." }, { "chunk": 438, "story": 8, "predicament": "Told by his boss that he has been sold off, a man saves face by announcing he is leaving anyway for a nobler cause." }, { "chunk": 507, "story": 11, "predicament": "Watching others moved on ahead of him, a man tells himself they are the rejects, and plans to jump ahead through a selective course." }, { "chunk": 522, "story": 11, "predicament": "Passed over again, a man hears that the course he hoped for is out of his reach, and grumbles that his wife neglects him." }, { "chunk": 533, "story": 11, "predicament": "A man arriving at a new post finds a colleague he despises has been promoted above him, and tells himself it means nothing." }, { "chunk": 567, "story": 12, "predicament": "Cleared of bad intent but found too gullible to hold responsibility, a man is demoted and claims it is what he wanted." }, { "chunk": 880, "story": 22, "predicament": "Benched after two poor showings, a man complains that he is being wasted, and someone above agrees he is useless." } ], "options": [ { "text": "Go where you are sent and work your way back.", "source": "scene:31", "moves": { "discipline": "+", "standing": "-", "relationships.boss": "+" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Refuse to report.", "source": "scene:30", "moves": { "standing": "risk", "relationships.boss": "-", "money": "-" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Tell yourself it is really a sign of their confidence.", "source": "scene:122", "moves": { "standing": "-", "flags.in_denial": "set" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Ask the boss plainly what you must do to get back.", "source": "scene:128", "moves": { "relationships.boss": "+", "savvy": "+" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Scheme to be picked up by someone else.", "source": "scene:32", "moves": { "savvy": "+", "relationships.boss": "-" }, "in_group": true } ] }, { "id": "G04", "name": "A boss who manages by mockery", "predicament": "The person in charge of you keeps making jokes at your expense, and you cannot tell, or will not see, whether it is praise or contempt.", "sentence": "A subordinate wants the boss's regard from a boss who mocks.", "actor": "subordinate", "wants": "the boss's regard", "counterpart": "a boss who mocks", "stories": [ 0, 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 8, 18, 19 ], "story_titles": [ "A Busher’s Letters Home", "The Busher Comes Back", "The Busher’s Honeymoon", "The Busher’s Kid", "The Busher Beats It Hence", "The Busher Abroad", "Call for Mr. Keefe!", "The Busher Reenlists", "The Battle of Texas" ], "standing": { "low": 7, "middle": 13 }, "stage": "middle", "members": [ { "chunk": 6, "story": 0, "predicament": "A newcomer who eats like a glutton is ribbed by a senior hand and decides the mockery is only envy of his talent." }, { "chunk": 10, "story": 0, "predicament": "A newcomer basking in a colleague's compliment is told flatly by a senior hand that he is nothing special." }, { "chunk": 13, "story": 0, "predicament": "A newcomer who blames colleagues for every slip is given pointed advice by the boss and cannot tell if he is being mocked." }, { "chunk": 14, "story": 0, "predicament": "A newcomer who is mocked by the boss swears he would hit back if ever scolded, then goes out on the town." }, { "chunk": 17, "story": 0, "predicament": "A newcomer given an easy task for the boss's convenience takes it as proof he is finally being recognised." }, { "chunk": 40, "story": 1, "predicament": "Someone who was humiliated by a rival crowd comes back to face them, while the two bosses joke about him in his presence." }, { "chunk": 90, "story": 2, "predicament": "Someone who asks the boss to pay for his wife's travel is openly mocked in front of colleagues and misses the joke." }, { "chunk": 149, "story": 4, "predicament": "Someone reads a senior colleague's teasing as proof of high regard, and brags that he has now beaten everyone." }, { "chunk": 151, "story": 4, "predicament": "A proud father shows off his child to a senior colleague, who uses the occasion to joke at the father's expense." }, { "chunk": 192, "story": 5, "predicament": "A braggart sneers at a true master of the craft, and takes the master's cutting remarks about his sense as envy." }, { "chunk": 193, "story": 5, "predicament": "A man is flattered by a powerful figure who openly wants him along as a joke, and misses the joke entirely." }, { "chunk": 222, "story": 6, "predicament": "A man takes a boss's teasing advice at face value, and gloats that his old colleagues are hardly worth his effort." }, { "chunk": 242, "story": 6, "predicament": "A boss's kind excuse for someone's failure is taken as proof of genius, while another boss jokes about stranding him." }, { "chunk": 339, "story": 6, "predicament": "A man compared to an ancient stone head by jokers takes it as a tribute to his strength rather than his wits." }, { "chunk": 409, "story": 8, "predicament": "A man who talks of volunteering for danger names his family and his employer as reasons he cannot, and is mocked for it." }, { "chunk": 763, "story": 18, "predicament": "A man convinces himself the new person in charge has always favoured him, though his memories show he was mostly the joke." }, { "chunk": 777, "story": 19, "predicament": "A man back among old colleagues looks down on their small pleasures, while the person in charge teases him about his own habits." }, { "chunk": 782, "story": 19, "predicament": "Someone above lays down strict rules, and a man who boasts they cannot apply to him is mocked for his appetite." }, { "chunk": 792, "story": 19, "predicament": "When a man's distraction becomes public, the person in charge ridicules him in front of everyone and tightens the rules for all." }, { "chunk": 803, "story": 19, "predicament": "A man sulking at someone above is won back by a joke at the expense of a rival who has just been dismissed." } ], "options": [ { "text": "Take it as praise.", "source": "scene:149", "moves": { "relationships.boss": "+", "savvy": "-" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Answer back in kind, in front of everyone.", "source": "scene:40", "moves": { "standing": "risk", "relationships.boss": "-" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Laugh along, and take the point behind the joke.", "source": "filled", "moves": { "savvy": "+", "discipline": "+", "relationships.boss": "+" }, "in_group": null }, { "text": "Swear to yourself you will hit him next time.", "source": "scene:14", "moves": { "relationships.boss": "-", "flags.grudge": "set" }, "in_group": true } ] }, { "id": "G05", "name": "Whose fault was it?", "predicament": "You have failed in front of everyone, and there are plenty of other people and things you could put it down to.", "sentence": "A person who failed wants to keep their good name from colleagues and onlookers.", "actor": "person who failed", "wants": "to keep their good name", "counterpart": "colleagues and onlookers", "stories": [ 0, 1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 11, 14, 15, 19, 20, 21, 22 ], "story_titles": [ "A Busher’s Letters Home", "The Busher Comes Back", "A New Busher Breaks In", "The Busher Beats It Hence", "The Busher Abroad", "The Busher’s Welcome Home", "Call for Mr. Keefe!", "Purls Before Swine", "Stragety and Tragedy", "Decorated", "The Battle of Texas", "Along Came Ruth", "The Courtship of T. Dorgan", "The Busher Pulls a Mays" ], "standing": { "low": 9, "middle": 17 }, "stage": "middle", "members": [ { "chunk": 26, "story": 0, "predicament": "Someone humiliated in their first real test insists everyone around them failed, while a rival openly taunts them." }, { "chunk": 29, "story": 0, "predicament": "Someone sent off in disgrace writes home a version where it was not their fault, and promises next time will be different." }, { "chunk": 53, "story": 1, "predicament": "Someone holding their own in a tense contest escapes trouble again and again, and blames the judge for his own mistakes." }, { "chunk": 56, "story": 1, "predicament": "Someone who loses an important contest blames everyone else, and explains away a fiancée's long silence as a pleasant surprise." }, { "chunk": 132, "story": 3, "predicament": "Someone who insists on taking the decisive moment himself to beat a rival fails, and blames the judge." }, { "chunk": 201, "story": 5, "predicament": "Someone beaten again in public blames the weather and his body, and turns down another invitation from the other boss." }, { "chunk": 240, "story": 6, "predicament": "Someone set on leaving learns his escape route was a joke, then performs badly and blames his body and new colleagues." }, { "chunk": 265, "story": 6, "predicament": "Someone beaten again blames the air itself, and says the boss should have sent a lesser person in his place." }, { "chunk": 269, "story": 6, "predicament": "Someone who lost to visitors pities the local amateurs and keeps blaming the climate for his own failure." }, { "chunk": 340, "story": 6, "predicament": "Someone who gets only a draw blames the conditions and belittles his counterpart, who worked under the same ones." }, { "chunk": 383, "story": 7, "predicament": "Someone who wanted to shine in his last appearance before his old boss is beaten by a lowly fill-in, and calls it luck." }, { "chunk": 384, "story": 7, "predicament": "Someone who kept quiet about being unfit blames the boss for not noticing, after a public failure." }, { "chunk": 385, "story": 7, "predicament": "Someone who performed badly insists he bravely bore the pain, and that his colleagues had already stopped trying." }, { "chunk": 386, "story": 7, "predicament": "Someone beaten at the decisive moment by a lowly newcomer sneers that the newcomer does not belong." }, { "chunk": 423, "story": 8, "predicament": "After a public failure, someone blames the people who reported it and insists he was only the victim of bad luck." }, { "chunk": 425, "story": 8, "predicament": "When things fall apart on his watch, a man blames every colleague who shouted at him, and is pulled off the job." }, { "chunk": 517, "story": 11, "predicament": "Before a skills test goes badly, someone complains the conditions and methods are all wrong and nobody could succeed." }, { "chunk": 518, "story": 11, "predicament": "Someone scores far below colleagues on a test, calls their success luck, and turns on the one who teases him." }, { "chunk": 617, "story": 14, "predicament": "To prove his cleverness, someone offers as an example a contest he lost, blaming the loss on everyone else." }, { "chunk": 675, "story": 15, "predicament": "Beaten by the colleague he wronged, a man insists he only tripped and would have won if he had been ready." }, { "chunk": 676, "story": 15, "predicament": "After taking a beating he earned, a man blames the one who stirred things up, and still insists he is tougher." }, { "chunk": 795, "story": 19, "predicament": "When a man's work slips, someone above blames the distraction he is courting, and he blames everyone else instead." }, { "chunk": 817, "story": 20, "predicament": "A man on a winning streak insists the only blemish on his record was somebody else's fault." }, { "chunk": 864, "story": 21, "predicament": "Having lost a standoff at home out of stubbornness, a man is taken off at work and insists he would have done better." }, { "chunk": 877, "story": 22, "predicament": "With the group worn down and a rival closing in, a man excuses his own poor form with a convenient ailment." }, { "chunk": 889, "story": 22, "predicament": "Caught out and replaced by a colleague who succeeds, a man insists he could have done as well and threatens to quit." } ], "options": [ { "text": "Blame the conditions, your body and your teammates.", "source": "scene:26", "moves": { "relationships.colleagues": "-", "standing": "-" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Write home a version where it was not your fault.", "source": "scene:29", "moves": { "relationships.friend": "+", "flags.tall_tale": "set" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Own the mistake to the people who saw it.", "source": "filled", "moves": { "standing": "+", "relationships.colleagues": "+" }, "in_group": null }, { "text": "Say nothing, and work on what went wrong.", "source": "archetype", "moves": { "discipline": "+" }, "in_group": null } ] }, { "id": "G06", "name": "A step up goes to your head", "predicament": "You have been raised a little above the people you worked beside, and it is tempting to act as if you had been raised a lot.", "sentence": "A newly favoured worker wants to be respected in the new place from former equals.", "actor": "newly favoured worker", "wants": "to be respected in the new place", "counterpart": "former equals", "stories": [ 0, 1, 10, 11, 19, 22 ], "story_titles": [ "A Busher’s Letters Home", "The Busher Comes Back", "Corporal Punishment", "Purls Before Swine", "The Battle of Texas", "The Busher Pulls a Mays" ], "standing": { "low": 11, "middle": 3 }, "stage": "low", "members": [ { "chunk": 12, "story": 0, "predicament": "A newcomer promoted to the favoured group takes all the credit and pretends the mentor who helped him taught him nothing." }, { "chunk": 20, "story": 0, "predicament": "A newcomer who finally earns the boss's praise decides his place is secure while his money quietly runs out." }, { "chunk": 38, "story": 1, "predicament": "Someone given a second chance wins a real success, and a mentor's praise comes with a warning not to let it swell his head." }, { "chunk": 39, "story": 1, "predicament": "Someone who has earned the boss's grudging confidence is promised a chance at the big payout and immediately sneers at a humbler peer." }, { "chunk": 476, "story": 10, "predicament": "A child's innocent mistake about his father's standing is taken by the father as a sign of the promotion he deserves." }, { "chunk": 485, "story": 10, "predicament": "Promoted one small step above his peers, a man assumes the order came from the very top because of his outstanding qualities." }, { "chunk": 486, "story": 10, "predicament": "Put in charge of a handful of former equals, a man imagines they revere him and compares himself to great leaders." }, { "chunk": 487, "story": 10, "predicament": "Newly promoted, a man jokes that his old friend must defer to him, and holds back effort to protect his future elsewhere." }, { "chunk": 489, "story": 10, "predicament": "Someone newly in charge plays the inspiring leader loudly, and a mocking subordinate needles him for putting on airs." }, { "chunk": 495, "story": 10, "predicament": "A man one step up refuses to join his former equals at play, believing distance will make them respect him more." }, { "chunk": 530, "story": 11, "predicament": "A man one step up forces himself through a punishing task to set an example, and bullies a subordinate who answers back." }, { "chunk": 788, "story": 19, "predicament": "Praised at last by someone above, a man is warned not to let it go to his head, and left alone unsupervised." }, { "chunk": 789, "story": 19, "predicament": "Left unsupervised right after being praised, a man cuts his work short and falls in with an admirer who happens along." }, { "chunk": 883, "story": 22, "predicament": "Sent ahead of the group on a special errand, a man takes it as a mark of favour and a promise of regular work." } ], "options": [ { "text": "Hold yourself apart from your old friends.", "source": "scene:495", "moves": { "standing": "+", "relationships.colleagues": "-" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Throw your weight about with the one who answers back.", "source": "scene:530", "moves": { "relationships.colleagues": "-", "standing": "risk" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Ease off, now that your place is safe.", "source": "scene:789", "moves": { "discipline": "-", "relationships.boss": "-" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Keep working exactly as before.", "source": "filled", "moves": { "discipline": "+", "relationships.colleagues": "+" }, "in_group": null }, { "text": "Give the credit to the one who taught you.", "source": "filled", "moves": { "relationships.boss": "+", "savvy": "+" }, "in_group": null } ] }, { "id": "G07", "name": "Called to account for a lapse", "predicament": "Someone above you has you in front of them over something you really did, and what happens next depends on how you answer.", "sentence": "A person in trouble wants to get off lightly from a superior sitting in judgement.", "actor": "person in trouble", "wants": "to get off lightly", "counterpart": "a superior sitting in judgement", "stories": [ 2, 3, 10, 12, 13, 21, 22 ], "story_titles": [ "The Busher’s Honeymoon", "A New Busher Breaks In", "Corporal Punishment", "And Many a Stormy Wind Shall Blow", "Private Valentine", "The Courtship of T. Dorgan", "The Busher Pulls a Mays" ], "standing": { "middle": 9, "low": 5 }, "stage": "middle", "members": [ { "chunk": 89, "story": 2, "predicament": "Someone in debt asks the boss for an advance on his wages, and is asked pointedly about his habits." }, { "chunk": 111, "story": 3, "predicament": "The boss tells someone exactly why he was sent away, listing his drinking and disloyalty, and says he could do it again." }, { "chunk": 129, "story": 3, "predicament": "Someone who let a personal grudge wreck an important effort is fined, and complains he was treated unfairly." }, { "chunk": 135, "story": 3, "predicament": "Someone fined and suspended for a spiteful act finds his pay eaten by penalties and old advances he had forgotten." }, { "chunk": 136, "story": 3, "predicament": "A suspended worker is brought back by a boss who hoped the time off would teach him to think." }, { "chunk": 506, "story": 10, "predicament": "Called before his superior for a lapse, a man is let off because he is needed, and learns the danger he feared was a hoax." }, { "chunk": 564, "story": 12, "predicament": "Someone tries out his proud new learning on a foreign superior, gives grave offence, and is summoned before those above him." }, { "chunk": 565, "story": 12, "predicament": "Called to account by those at the top, someone explains that a remark that sounded disloyal was a joke he was fooled by." }, { "chunk": 566, "story": 12, "predicament": "Accused before his superiors of insulting an ally, someone realises he was tricked, and a fair-minded boss steps in to investigate." }, { "chunk": 591, "story": 13, "predicament": "A colleague blows money meant for necessities on a spree, and nearly everyone who joined in is heavily punished." }, { "chunk": 847, "story": 21, "predicament": "After a late night out, a man is made to work the next day, performs badly, is fined, and blames everyone else." }, { "chunk": 887, "story": 22, "predicament": "A man who oversleeps after a night of drinking returns late to find someone above waiting, and tells a flimsy lie." }, { "chunk": 888, "story": 22, "predicament": "Sent in hungover, a man fails at once and protests he was not given a fair chance, only to learn his secret is known." }, { "chunk": 897, "story": 22, "predicament": "A man protests that a colleague's failure is forgiven while his was punished, and is told the difference was his drinking." } ], "options": [ { "text": "Tell a flimsy story.", "source": "scene:887", "moves": { "standing": "risk", "relationships.boss": "-" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Explain what really happened, even though it makes you look a fool.", "source": "scene:565", "moves": { "standing": "-", "relationships.boss": "+" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Protest that you are being treated unfairly.", "source": "scene:129", "moves": { "relationships.boss": "-", "money": "-" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Take the penalty and promise to change.", "source": "filled", "moves": { "money": "-", "relationships.boss": "+", "discipline": "+" }, "in_group": null }, { "text": "Say it was what you wanted all along.", "source": "scene:567", "moves": { "standing": "-", "flags.saved_face": "set" }, "in_group": false } ] }, { "id": "G08", "name": "Sure you know better than the boss", "predicament": "The person in charge has made a call you are sure is wrong, and you are the one who has to live with it.", "sentence": "A subordinate wants to be proved right from the one in charge.", "actor": "subordinate", "wants": "to be proved right", "counterpart": "the one in charge", "stories": [ 0, 1, 6, 10, 14, 15, 17, 20, 22 ], "story_titles": [ "A Busher’s Letters Home", "The Busher Comes Back", "The Busher Abroad", "Corporal Punishment", "Stragety and Tragedy", "Decorated", "Simple Simon", "Along Came Ruth", "The Busher Pulls a Mays" ], "standing": { "low": 10, "middle": 4 }, "stage": "low", "members": [ { "chunk": 24, "story": 0, "predicament": "A newcomer publicly tells the boss he is wrong, gloats when proved right, and refuses a senior hand's advice to apologise." }, { "chunk": 45, "story": 1, "predicament": "Someone who defies a direct order and gets away with it by luck is told by the boss that next time he is finished." }, { "chunk": 266, "story": 6, "predicament": "Someone whose boss overrules him and takes him out at the crucial moment decides the boss he admired is an idiot." }, { "chunk": 479, "story": 10, "predicament": "Stuck far from his old line of work, someone second-guesses the people doing it from a distance, sure he would do better." }, { "chunk": 618, "story": 14, "predicament": "Someone near the bottom writes that the people running things would do better if they had his own background." }, { "chunk": 635, "story": 14, "predicament": "Someone at the bottom prepares to lecture the leaders on the most obvious principle of their own business." }, { "chunk": 636, "story": 14, "predicament": "Someone illustrates his winning advice with a story of a contest he lost, blaming luck and colleagues." }, { "chunk": 637, "story": 14, "predicament": "Someone drafts advice for his leaders that states the obvious, each point illustrated by one of his own defeats." }, { "chunk": 649, "story": 15, "predicament": "When a single leader is put over everyone, a man grumbles that the choice should have been someone like himself." }, { "chunk": 650, "story": 15, "predicament": "A man reasons from his old work that one boss giving orders beats several bosses contradicting each other." }, { "chunk": 716, "story": 17, "predicament": "A man lectures his colleagues on strategy from his experience in an unrelated line of work, and brushes off their jokes." }, { "chunk": 808, "story": 20, "predicament": "After a setback, a man second-guesses the choices of the person in charge and sneers at his colleagues' excuses." }, { "chunk": 809, "story": 20, "predicament": "A man presses to be given the next big task and is told firmly to stop trying to run things himself." }, { "chunk": 881, "story": 22, "predicament": "Kept out of things, a man decides the person in charge has lost his mind for seeking help from outside instead of using him." } ], "options": [ { "text": "Tell the boss to their face that they are wrong.", "source": "scene:24", "moves": { "relationships.boss": "-", "standing": "risk" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Do it your way, against orders.", "source": "scene:45", "moves": { "relationships.boss": "-", "standing": "risk", "flags.defied_orders": "set" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Send your advice up in writing.", "source": "scene:618", "moves": { "standing": "risk", "savvy": "-" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Do as you are told, and say your piece afterwards.", "source": "filled", "moves": { "relationships.boss": "+", "savvy": "+" }, "in_group": null } ] }, { "id": "G09", "name": "The boss takes a hand in your private life", "predicament": "The person who holds your job has decided your private life is hurting your work, and is taking it in hand, for your good or theirs.", "sentence": "A employee wants to live as they please from a boss who intervenes.", "actor": "employee", "wants": "to live as they please", "counterpart": "a boss who intervenes", "stories": [ 0, 1, 3, 4, 19, 20, 22 ], "story_titles": [ "A Busher’s Letters Home", "The Busher Comes Back", "A New Busher Breaks In", "The Busher’s Kid", "The Battle of Texas", "Along Came Ruth", "The Busher Pulls a Mays" ], "standing": { "low": 4, "middle": 12 }, "stage": "middle", "members": [ { "chunk": 11, "story": 0, "predicament": "A newcomer told bluntly he has much to learn answers that rivals would snap him up, then grudgingly accepts lessons." }, { "chunk": 35, "story": 1, "predicament": "A boss warns that a new romance is hurting someone's work; they tell him to mind his business, then quietly obey." }, { "chunk": 48, "story": 1, "predicament": "A naive newcomer being fleeced in the big city is taken in hand by a senior mentor who offers to steer him." }, { "chunk": 49, "story": 1, "predicament": "A mentor chaperoning a naive newcomer drives off the city's temptations, while the newcomer thinks he is spoiling the fun." }, { "chunk": 118, "story": 3, "predicament": "A mentor kindly keeps someone away from his estranged in-laws and temptations, and he tells himself it is only temporary." }, { "chunk": 121, "story": 3, "predicament": "Someone who thinks a good day's work earns him a feast is overruled by a mentor who says his weight is the problem." }, { "chunk": 124, "story": 3, "predicament": "Someone watched closely by a mentor for his own good resents the supervision and sneaks off to indulge anyway." }, { "chunk": 173, "story": 4, "predicament": "A tactful mentor visits a distraught worker's home and quietly settles the family trouble so he can get back to work." }, { "chunk": 798, "story": 19, "predicament": "Someone above promises a man a secure place and more money, as long as he keeps his mind off a distraction." }, { "chunk": 805, "story": 19, "predicament": "Someone above guesses a man's secret from his face, and asks, innocently enough, for his home address." }, { "chunk": 806, "story": 19, "predicament": "On the day he most needs to shine, a man finds that someone above has quietly brought his wife to watch him." }, { "chunk": 815, "story": 20, "predicament": "Caught breaking the rules, a man watches the person above him confiscate the goods and call it a fine." }, { "chunk": 818, "story": 20, "predicament": "A man sulking for an apology is instead told the rebuke was for his own good, and cannot refuse the chance offered." }, { "chunk": 837, "story": 20, "predicament": "Someone above visits a man's wife, then tells him bluntly that she has carried the family and he has behaved like a child." }, { "chunk": 838, "story": 20, "predicament": "A man sets conditions for going home, until someone above threatens to tell his wife about his own flirtation." }, { "chunk": 884, "story": 22, "predicament": "Someone above bluntly names a man's drinking as the cause of his failures, and gives him one unsupervised chance to shape up." } ], "options": [ { "text": "Tell them to mind their own business.", "source": "scene:35", "moves": { "relationships.boss": "-", "standing": "risk" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Do as they say, and take the reward.", "source": "scene:818", "moves": { "relationships.boss": "+", "money": "+", "discipline": "+" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Agree, then sneak off anyway.", "source": "scene:124", "moves": { "discipline": "-", "relationships.boss": "risk" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Set your own conditions before you comply.", "source": "scene:838", "moves": { "relationships.boss": "-", "relationships.spouse": "-" }, "in_group": true } ] }, { "id": "G10", "name": "Counting on who you used to be", "predicament": "You expect your past record to open doors, and the people who could open them are not impressed.", "sentence": "A former star wants to be taken on their own terms from people with work to give.", "actor": "former star", "wants": "to be taken on their own terms", "counterpart": "people with work to give", "stories": [ 9, 17, 18, 22 ], "story_titles": [ "Jack the Kaiser Killer", "Simple Simon", "The Busher Reenlists", "The Busher Pulls a Mays" ], "standing": { "low": 7, "middle": 1 }, "stage": "low", "members": [ { "chunk": 443, "story": 9, "predicament": "Thrown in with a crowd of strangers, someone accepts their recognition graciously and congratulates himself on being so humble." }, { "chunk": 458, "story": 9, "predicament": "Granted a favour early, a newcomer assumes it is because of who he used to be, and plans to parade it before his old colleagues." }, { "chunk": 738, "story": 17, "predicament": "Sent home with a lasting injury, a man assumes his sacrifice will make his old employer glad to take him back on his terms." }, { "chunk": 747, "story": 18, "predicament": "A man sure his reputation will open every door has found, within a week, that the people with jobs to give are unimpressed." }, { "chunk": 749, "story": 18, "predicament": "At an interview for a modest job, a man sneers at the work, boasts of unrelated glories, and is turned down." }, { "chunk": 750, "story": 18, "predicament": "Offered only the lowliest opening, a proud man walks out and resolves to wait for employers to come to him instead." }, { "chunk": 754, "story": 18, "predicament": "Ignored by old colleagues and teased by someone above him, a man reads their indifference as proof they are eager to have him back." }, { "chunk": 895, "story": 22, "predicament": "Seeing his group near a big reward, a man feels he is owed a share for the sacrifice he once made." } ], "options": [ { "text": "Wait for them to come to you.", "source": "scene:750", "moves": { "money": "-", "standing": "risk" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Remind them of everything you have done.", "source": "scene:749", "moves": { "standing": "-", "relationships.boss": "-" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Take the modest opening and prove yourself again.", "source": "scene:748", "moves": { "money": "+", "standing": "-", "discipline": "+" }, "in_group": false }, { "text": "Ask plainly what they can offer you now.", "source": "filled", "moves": { "savvy": "+" }, "in_group": null } ] }, { "id": "G11", "name": "The big occasion, and you are not ready", "predicament": "The moment you have been waiting for has arrived, and your mind, your body or your preparation is somewhere else.", "sentence": "A person given a big chance wants to shine from the watching crowd and the boss.", "actor": "person given a big chance", "wants": "to shine", "counterpart": "the watching crowd and the boss", "stories": [ 0, 1, 4, 14, 20, 22 ], "story_titles": [ "A Busher’s Letters Home", "The Busher Comes Back", "The Busher’s Kid", "Stragety and Tragedy", "Along Came Ruth", "The Busher Pulls a Mays" ], "standing": { "low": 6, "middle": 9 }, "stage": "middle", "members": [ { "chunk": 25, "story": 0, "predicament": "A newcomer handed his big chance only because no one else is left fails badly, and blames injury and colleagues." }, { "chunk": 27, "story": 0, "predicament": "A newcomer who argues with a colleague in the middle of a disaster is left to suffer by a boss who mocks him." }, { "chunk": 28, "story": 0, "predicament": "Someone failing badly in public begs silently to be relieved, and the boss makes them finish as a lesson." }, { "chunk": 50, "story": 1, "predicament": "Someone handed the hardest assignment takes it as proof he is the best, while torn between two women he has encouraged." }, { "chunk": 52, "story": 1, "predicament": "Someone chosen for a nearly hopeless task wants badly to prove the boss did not make a mistake in choosing him." }, { "chunk": 168, "story": 4, "predicament": "Someone chosen to open the most important contest of the year starts brilliantly and is handed an early lead." }, { "chunk": 169, "story": 4, "predicament": "At the height of his finest hour, a father sees his wife in the crowd when she should be home with the baby." }, { "chunk": 170, "story": 4, "predicament": "Someone mid-performance panics that his child has been abandoned, and can think of nothing else in front of everyone." }, { "chunk": 172, "story": 4, "predicament": "Someone whose distraction costs his side dearly rushes home to find the child safe with a hired girl, and berates his wife." }, { "chunk": 632, "story": 14, "predicament": "Expecting to be singled out by the top, someone rehearses his ideas in writing so he will not freeze in the moment." }, { "chunk": 833, "story": 20, "predicament": "On the day his future depends on one performance, a man sees his wife arrive with a stranger at her side." }, { "chunk": 835, "story": 20, "predicament": "Distracted by jealousy at the worst moment, a man falls apart in front of everyone, and someone above lets him keep failing." }, { "chunk": 886, "story": 22, "predicament": "Left on his own to rest before a test, a man skips the preparation, gets bored, and goes out drinking with a friend." }, { "chunk": 904, "story": 22, "predicament": "Sick from his own excess, a man is unexpectedly called on to perform, and his complaints get no sympathy." }, { "chunk": 905, "story": 22, "predicament": "Struggling badly in public, a man looks to the person in charge for rescue, and is deliberately left to flounder." } ], "options": [ { "text": "Go out and give it everything you have.", "source": "scene:52", "moves": { "standing": "risk", "discipline": "+" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Ask to be taken out.", "source": "scene:171", "moves": { "relationships.boss": "-", "standing": "-" }, "in_group": false }, { "text": "Let what is on your mind take over.", "source": "scene:834", "moves": { "standing": "-", "relationships.spouse": "risk" }, "in_group": false }, { "text": "Prepare properly the day before.", "source": "filled", "moves": { "discipline": "+", "relationships.boss": "+" }, "in_group": null } ] }, { "id": "G12", "name": "A personal score in the middle of the work", "predicament": "Someone you have a private quarrel with is right there in the work, and you could settle it at your side's expense.", "sentence": "A worker with a grudge wants to get even from a rival.", "actor": "worker with a grudge", "wants": "to get even", "counterpart": "a rival", "stories": [ 1, 3, 6, 21, 22 ], "story_titles": [ "The Busher Comes Back", "A New Busher Breaks In", "The Busher Abroad", "The Courtship of T. Dorgan", "The Busher Pulls a Mays" ], "standing": { "low": 1, "middle": 9 }, "stage": "middle", "members": [ { "chunk": 41, "story": 1, "predicament": "Someone once humbled by a rival outfit gets his revenge on them, trading taunts with the rivals while he does it." }, { "chunk": 131, "story": 3, "predicament": "A man matched evenly against his rival calls the rival's success luck and keeps playing to the woman watching." }, { "chunk": 133, "story": 3, "predicament": "A rival's taunt about having won the woman sends a man into a rage that wrecks his work at the worst moment." }, { "chunk": 134, "story": 3, "predicament": "A man consumed by jealousy deliberately harms his rival in public, throwing away the outcome for his side." }, { "chunk": 137, "story": 3, "predicament": "Someone given a second chance against his rival makes the rival look foolish, and still blames the judge for a slip." }, { "chunk": 139, "story": 3, "predicament": "Someone whose rival tries to hurt him keeps his head and wins the day, earning the boss's hint of forgiveness." }, { "chunk": 295, "story": 6, "predicament": "Someone mocked by a colleague takes revenge in the middle of the work itself, and gloats about it afterwards." }, { "chunk": 865, "story": 21, "predicament": "A man's idle boast about a rival reaches the rival, who confronts him, and he tries to deny he ever said it." }, { "chunk": 867, "story": 21, "predicament": "Trying to intimidate two rivals, a man gives them exactly what they wanted, and later finds a reason not to face them." }, { "chunk": 894, "story": 22, "predicament": "Called on in a pinch, a man is tempted to do badly out of spite, then does well for his colleagues' sake." } ], "options": [ { "text": "Settle it now, whatever it costs the side.", "source": "scene:134", "moves": { "relationships.rival": "-", "relationships.boss": "-", "money": "-", "flags.grudge": "set" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Beat them by doing the job well.", "source": "scene:139", "moves": { "standing": "+", "relationships.boss": "+" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Back down, and call it the clever thing to do.", "source": "scene:866", "moves": { "standing": "-" }, "in_group": false }, { "text": "Put your teammates first, whatever you feel.", "source": "scene:894", "moves": { "relationships.colleagues": "+", "discipline": "+" }, "in_group": true } ] }, { "id": "G13", "name": "A drink against the rules", "predicament": "A drink is on offer where drinking is forbidden or will cost you tomorrow, and you are sure nobody will notice.", "sentence": "A worker told to stay sober wants a drink from whoever enforces the rule.", "actor": "worker told to stay sober", "wants": "a drink", "counterpart": "whoever enforces the rule", "stories": [ 1, 2, 9, 13, 20, 22 ], "story_titles": [ "The Busher Comes Back", "The Busher’s Honeymoon", "Jack the Kaiser Killer", "Private Valentine", "Along Came Ruth", "The Busher Pulls a Mays" ], "standing": { "low": 5, "middle": 7 }, "stage": "middle", "members": [ { "chunk": 42, "story": 1, "predicament": "Someone who wrote off a former sweetheart gets a call from her after a public success, and she denies the slight that ended it." }, { "chunk": 85, "story": 2, "predicament": "Someone who once kept early, sober habits drifts into late nights and heavy drinking, and brags about his capacity." }, { "chunk": 444, "story": 9, "predicament": "A crowd of newcomers heading into a hard new life drinks itself senseless on the way, and one tries to quit before arriving." }, { "chunk": 445, "story": 9, "predicament": "Someone who arrives as drunk as everyone else insists he alone stayed sober, and blames something he ate." }, { "chunk": 578, "story": 13, "predicament": "Freed from the rules back home, a newcomer eyes cheap temptations and tells himself they are simply a bargain." }, { "chunk": 605, "story": 13, "predicament": "Learning the woman he thought adored him handed his note round as a joke, a man drowns his humiliation and risks punishment." }, { "chunk": 813, "story": 20, "predicament": "A man who has promised to stay sober lets a friend talk him into a drink he knows is against the rules." }, { "chunk": 814, "story": 20, "predicament": "A man pays dearly for a forbidden indulgence while a freeloading friend drinks it, and someone above walks in first." }, { "chunk": 836, "story": 20, "predicament": "After wrecking his big chance, a man vanishes on a binge and declares he is finished with both work and home." }, { "chunk": 882, "story": 22, "predicament": "A man who says he needs to get back in shape pays heavily for a bottle to see him through a quiet day." }, { "chunk": 885, "story": 22, "predicament": "Given a last chance to stay sober, a man promises to behave, but already reckons a few drinks will not be noticed." }, { "chunk": 903, "story": 22, "predicament": "The night before he may be needed, a man drinks himself sick at a celebration, and blames what he ate." } ], "options": [ { "text": "Have one; nobody will notice.", "source": "scene:885", "moves": { "discipline": "-", "relationships.boss": "risk" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Drink to drown it.", "source": "scene:605", "moves": { "discipline": "-", "standing": "-", "flags.drinking": "set" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Blame whatever you ate.", "source": "scene:903", "moves": { "standing": "-", "savvy": "-" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Turn it down, and say why.", "source": "filled", "moves": { "discipline": "+", "relationships.colleagues": "-" }, "in_group": null } ] }, { "id": "G14", "name": "Looking for a way out of what everyone must do", "predicament": "Everyone in your position has to face a duty, and you are hunting for a reason you should be excused.", "sentence": "A person with a duty wants to be excused from the ones who decide.", "actor": "person with a duty", "wants": "to be excused", "counterpart": "the ones who decide", "stories": [ 0, 4, 8, 9, 16 ], "story_titles": [ "A Busher’s Letters Home", "The Busher’s Kid", "Call for Mr. Keefe!", "Jack the Kaiser Killer", "Sammy Boy" ], "standing": { "low": 3, "middle": 5 }, "stage": "middle", "members": [ { "chunk": 7, "story": 0, "predicament": "A newcomer ignores an order on his first day, brushes off a veteran's friendly warning, and is openly jeered for laziness." }, { "chunk": 154, "story": 4, "predicament": "Someone who wants more time at home hopes to be excused from routine duties, sure he does not need them anyway." }, { "chunk": 420, "story": 8, "predicament": "Filling in an official form, someone mocks the questions as stupid and writes down the family excuse he has been told to claim." }, { "chunk": 429, "story": 8, "predicament": "A man called up for duty is sure his family and his fame will get him excused, and lists the small sacrifices he has made." }, { "chunk": 431, "story": 8, "predicament": "At a compulsory examination a man hints at ailments to get out of it, is warned about lying, and is passed anyway." }, { "chunk": 434, "story": 8, "predicament": "Told his excuse will not hold, a man schemes to make his wife give up her income so that he qualifies again." }, { "chunk": 452, "story": 9, "predicament": "A newcomer asks to be excused from the routine because he thinks himself above it, and is made to do every bit of it." }, { "chunk": 700, "story": 16, "predicament": "Given a dangerous task right after boasting, a man suddenly discovers a reason he might not be fit for it." } ], "options": [ { "text": "Claim an ailment.", "source": "scene:431", "moves": { "discipline": "-", "standing": "risk" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Plead your family and your employer.", "source": "scene:429", "moves": { "relationships.family": "+", "standing": "-" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Rearrange things so the excuse becomes true.", "source": "scene:434", "moves": { "savvy": "+", "relationships.spouse": "-", "flags.gamed_the_rules": "set" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Ask to be let off because you are above it.", "source": "scene:452", "moves": { "standing": "-", "relationships.boss": "-" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Do it, like everyone else.", "source": "archetype", "moves": { "discipline": "+", "relationships.colleagues": "+" }, "in_group": null } ] }, { "id": "G15", "name": "Fear passed off as something nobler", "predicament": "You are afraid of what you are being asked to face, and a more respectable reason for avoiding it is close at hand.", "sentence": "A frightened person wants to stay safe and keep their pride from whoever expects them to go.", "actor": "frightened person", "wants": "to stay safe and keep their pride", "counterpart": "whoever expects them to go", "stories": [ 3, 5, 9, 10, 14, 15, 16, 20, 21 ], "story_titles": [ "A New Busher Breaks In", "The Busher Beats It Hence", "Jack the Kaiser Killer", "Corporal Punishment", "Stragety and Tragedy", "Decorated", "Sammy Boy", "Along Came Ruth", "The Courtship of T. Dorgan" ], "standing": { "middle": 4, "low": 12 }, "stage": "low", "members": [ { "chunk": 120, "story": 3, "predicament": "A man who backed down from a threatening husband tells it as his own restraint, and swears off women entirely." }, { "chunk": 209, "story": 5, "predicament": "A man scared off by a joke insists fear has nothing to do with it, and worries about providing for his family." }, { "chunk": 464, "story": 9, "predicament": "A man gives up a long-awaited trip home, telling himself it will help his chances of promotion, while really acting from fear." }, { "chunk": 466, "story": 9, "predicament": "A frightened man tells himself he is only staying away to protect his wife and child from danger he would bring." }, { "chunk": 467, "story": 9, "predicament": "Someone piles up excuses for backing out of a favour he begged for, and his superior sees through them at once." }, { "chunk": 502, "story": 10, "predicament": "Frightened by what his step up may cost, a man thinks of getting himself demoted and tells himself it is loyalty to his team." }, { "chunk": 505, "story": 10, "predicament": "Sleepless with dread, a man wishes he could shed his promotion, then gets in trouble for coming back late." }, { "chunk": 620, "story": 14, "predicament": "Flattered that his ideas may reach the top, a man insists he does not want a safe desk job while plainly hoping for one." }, { "chunk": 624, "story": 14, "predicament": "Offered an escape from danger, a man insists he wants to face it, then persuades himself that escaping is a noble sacrifice." }, { "chunk": 627, "story": 14, "predicament": "Writing to the head of the organisation, someone insists he is no coward while offering himself for a safer role." }, { "chunk": 651, "story": 15, "predicament": "Someone boasts his skill has improved so much he will be given a special post that keeps him out of the worst danger." }, { "chunk": 667, "story": 15, "predicament": "Someone who boasted of his skill decides to hide it after all, to avoid a dangerous assignment, and calls the job unfair." }, { "chunk": 695, "story": 16, "predicament": "When volunteers are called for a risky errand, a man hangs back, then explains that it was pointless and he nearly went anyway." }, { "chunk": 708, "story": 16, "predicament": "Expecting a break any moment, a man dismisses talk of another risky errand as throwing good effort after bad." }, { "chunk": 816, "story": 20, "predicament": "Humiliated in front of a friend, a man claims he held back only for appearances, and vows to refuse work until apologised to." }, { "chunk": 866, "story": 21, "predicament": "Challenged over his own boast, a man backs down and tells himself it was the clever thing to do." } ], "options": [ { "text": "Give a noble reason for staying out of it.", "source": "scene:624", "moves": { "standing": "risk", "flags.fear_as_duty": "set" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Back down, and call it restraint.", "source": "scene:120", "moves": { "standing": "-", "flags.fear_as_duty": "set", "savvy": "-" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Stay back quietly and let others go.", "source": "archetype", "moves": { "relationships.colleagues": "-" }, "in_group": null }, { "text": "Admit you are afraid, and go anyway.", "source": "filled", "moves": { "discipline": "+", "standing": "+" }, "in_group": null } ] }, { "id": "G16", "name": "Talking brave, and being taken at your word", "predicament": "You have talked loudly about how brave you would be, and now someone is ready to take you up on it.", "sentence": "A boaster wants to be thought brave without the risk from those who heard the boast.", "actor": "boaster", "wants": "to be thought brave without the risk", "counterpart": "those who heard the boast", "stories": [ 1, 8, 10, 12, 15, 16, 17, 21 ], "story_titles": [ "The Busher Comes Back", "Call for Mr. Keefe!", "Corporal Punishment", "And Many a Stormy Wind Shall Blow", "Decorated", "Sammy Boy", "Simple Simon", "The Courtship of T. Dorgan" ], "standing": { "low": 7, "middle": 2 }, "stage": "low", "members": [ { "chunk": 51, "story": 1, "predicament": "Colleagues joke about how hopeless the next challenge is, and the newcomer loudly insists he alone is not afraid." }, { "chunk": 414, "story": 8, "predicament": "A man boasts he would volunteer for the most daring job going, and an older colleague turns it into a joke about his last failure." }, { "chunk": 504, "story": 10, "predicament": "A colleague piles on grisly tales of what happens to people in his position, and a frightened man insists he would be brave." }, { "chunk": 544, "story": 12, "predicament": "Early in a hard journey, someone claims he alone is unaffected and eager to arrive, and talks grandly of dying for the cause." }, { "chunk": 677, "story": 15, "predicament": "Ordered into real danger at last, a man claims to be thrilled and says it is his colleagues who are secretly afraid." }, { "chunk": 699, "story": 16, "predicament": "A man who complains of having nothing to do, and boasts he would never shirk a real task, is handed one at once." }, { "chunk": 709, "story": 16, "predicament": "Mocked by colleagues for a pet name, a man vows the last laugh, then abruptly signs up for the risk he scorned." }, { "chunk": 733, "story": 17, "predicament": "Sure a lost colleague is out in the dark, a man volunteers to fetch him before considering that it may be someone else." }, { "chunk": 849, "story": 21, "predicament": "Watching a fight he took no part in, a man boasts loudly of what he would have done to the troublemaker." } ], "options": [ { "text": "Volunteer, now that you have been called on it.", "source": "scene:709", "moves": { "standing": "+", "relationships.colleagues": "+", "flags.volunteered": "set" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Keep talking brave and hope nobody takes you up.", "source": "scene:544", "moves": { "standing": "risk" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Say it is the others who are really afraid.", "source": "scene:677", "moves": { "relationships.colleagues": "-" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Say plainly what you will and will not do.", "source": "filled", "moves": { "savvy": "+", "standing": "-" }, "in_group": null } ] }, { "id": "G17", "name": "Sure you are going to your death", "predicament": "You have convinced yourself that you will not come back from what lies ahead, and want to set things in order and be remembered well.", "sentence": "A person expecting to die wants a good farewell from the people they leave behind.", "actor": "person expecting to die", "wants": "a good farewell", "counterpart": "the people they leave behind", "stories": [ 5, 10, 11, 12, 16, 17 ], "story_titles": [ "The Busher Beats It Hence", "Corporal Punishment", "Purls Before Swine", "And Many a Stormy Wind Shall Blow", "Sammy Boy", "Simple Simon" ], "standing": { "middle": 2, "low": 6 }, "stage": "low", "members": [ { "chunk": 210, "story": 5, "predicament": "A frightened man leaving on a long journey writes tearful farewells and imagines his wife's guilt if he never returns." }, { "chunk": 212, "story": 5, "predicament": "A man sure he will not survive a journey asks his oldest friend to look after his wife and child if he dies." }, { "chunk": 500, "story": 10, "predicament": "Believing he is about to be sent into mortal danger, a man writes a grand farewell casting himself as sacrificing all for others." }, { "chunk": 540, "story": 11, "predicament": "Chosen with a few others to be sent into danger, a man treats it as an honour while dreading the farewell to his family." }, { "chunk": 558, "story": 12, "predicament": "Convinced by tall tales that his position dooms him, a man grows faint with dread and insists it is something else." }, { "chunk": 559, "story": 12, "predicament": "Sure he is about to die, a man writes a last letter declaring he will stay at his post until everyone else is saved." }, { "chunk": 686, "story": 16, "predicament": "On a secondhand rumour that his group must hold out to the end, a man dramatises the news as his final goodbye." }, { "chunk": 730, "story": 17, "predicament": "A man insists he bears no blame for a colleague's fate, casts the others as heartless, and braces to put it right himself." } ], "options": [ { "text": "Write a grand farewell.", "source": "scene:500", "moves": { "relationships.family": "+", "standing": "risk" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Settle your affairs with your oldest friend.", "source": "scene:212", "moves": { "relationships.friend": "+" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Swear you will stay at your post to the last.", "source": "scene:559", "moves": { "standing": "+", "discipline": "+" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Find out how real the danger is before you say goodbye.", "source": "filled", "moves": { "savvy": "+" }, "in_group": null } ] }, { "id": "G18", "name": "Waiting, with nothing to do", "predicament": "You were sent to face something, and instead there is only waiting, rain and routine, and the waiting is wearing you down.", "sentence": "A person kept waiting wants something to happen from those who keep them waiting.", "actor": "person kept waiting", "wants": "something to happen", "counterpart": "those who keep them waiting", "stories": [ 7, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 19 ], "story_titles": [ "The Busher’s Welcome Home", "Private Valentine", "Stragety and Tragedy", "Decorated", "Sammy Boy", "Simple Simon", "The Battle of Texas" ], "standing": { "middle": 2, "low": 10 }, "stage": "low", "members": [ { "chunk": 367, "story": 7, "predicament": "A traveller stuck indoors by endless bad weather in a famous city is bored to desperation and wants to move on." }, { "chunk": 592, "story": 13, "predicament": "Someone who secretly wants attention claims he is glad to be forgotten, and says he is wasted on endless basic training." }, { "chunk": 608, "story": 14, "predicament": "Soaked and idle, someone grumbles that the people who trained him never prepared him for what the job is really like." }, { "chunk": 647, "story": 15, "predicament": "Kept in the dark far from the real action, a newcomer complains that everyone back home knows more than he does." }, { "chunk": 648, "story": 15, "predicament": "Stuck in a quiet corner, someone reassures himself the danger will never come his way, while claiming to want it." }, { "chunk": 680, "story": 16, "predicament": "Someone stuck in a waiting role, far from where things happen, catches himself wishing misfortune on those ahead so he can move up." }, { "chunk": 685, "story": 16, "predicament": "Someone impatient for a real test grumbles at endless drills and precautions, then is moved forward early without warning." }, { "chunk": 693, "story": 16, "predicament": "A man who came expecting drama finds only rain, darkness and waiting, with any excitement happening somewhere out of sight." }, { "chunk": 694, "story": 16, "predicament": "Hungry and bored, a group reaches the point of wishing for real danger just to break the monotony." }, { "chunk": 715, "story": 17, "predicament": "A man stuck in a quiet stretch resents those on his own side who keep provoking the other side into hitting back." }, { "chunk": 722, "story": 17, "predicament": "Those above are angry that the group has achieved nothing, when it was those above who left it with nothing to do." }, { "chunk": 780, "story": 19, "predicament": "A group sent away to get ready for a hard stretch is stuck indoors by the weather, getting on each other's nerves." } ], "options": [ { "text": "Wish for trouble, anything to break it.", "source": "scene:694", "moves": { "discipline": "-" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Grumble at those above for wasting you.", "source": "scene:722", "moves": { "relationships.boss": "-" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Tell yourself it will never come your way.", "source": "scene:648", "moves": { "savvy": "-" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Keep yourself sharp for when it comes.", "source": "filled", "moves": { "discipline": "+" }, "in_group": null } ] }, { "id": "G19", "name": "Hardship you think is beneath you", "predicament": "You are used to better, and now you are fed, housed and moved about like everyone else, which you feel you do not deserve.", "sentence": "A person used to comfort wants the treatment they are used to from the people sharing the hardship.", "actor": "person used to comfort", "wants": "the treatment they are used to", "counterpart": "the people sharing the hardship", "stories": [ 6, 9, 12, 13, 14, 16 ], "story_titles": [ "The Busher Abroad", "Jack the Kaiser Killer", "And Many a Stormy Wind Shall Blow", "Private Valentine", "Stragety and Tragedy", "Sammy Boy" ], "standing": { "middle": 1, "low": 9 }, "stage": "low", "members": [ { "chunk": 244, "story": 6, "predicament": "A large man is squeezed into quarters built for smaller people, loses a night's sleep, and is mocked for complaining." }, { "chunk": 446, "story": 9, "predicament": "A newcomer discovers that every hour of his day is now regulated by signals, and grumbles at being told when to sleep." }, { "chunk": 547, "story": 12, "predicament": "Crowded, sleepless and made to rehearse pointless emergencies, a man grumbles about every rule while others joke about disaster." }, { "chunk": 572, "story": 13, "predicament": "Someone used to comfort and special treatment finds himself housed like livestock, and complains that he deserves better." }, { "chunk": 573, "story": 13, "predicament": "A man used to travelling in style is shipped about like cattle, and keeps comparing it with the comforts he has lost." }, { "chunk": 574, "story": 13, "predicament": "Crowded into squalid quarters while waiting to be put to real work, a newcomer watches seasoned people pass by." }, { "chunk": 607, "story": 14, "predicament": "Stuck in miserable conditions, a man sneers that others in the same enterprise have an easy ride and do nothing." }, { "chunk": 679, "story": 16, "predicament": "Someone sent to a hard and dangerous assignment complains that the people above him would not even spare him the exhausting journey there." }, { "chunk": 691, "story": 16, "predicament": "A hungry group waits on supplies that never arrive, and blames the timid people whose task is to bring them forward." }, { "chunk": 692, "story": 16, "predicament": "Someone told that everyone back home was going without for his sake finds his own share miserably thin." } ], "options": [ { "text": "Complain that you deserve better.", "source": "scene:572", "moves": { "relationships.colleagues": "-", "standing": "-" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Say others have an easy ride.", "source": "scene:607", "moves": { "relationships.colleagues": "-" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Make the best of it with the others.", "source": "filled", "moves": { "relationships.colleagues": "+", "discipline": "+" }, "in_group": null } ] }, { "id": "G20", "name": "New, and sure you are already the best", "predicament": "You are new to an outfit of old hands, have seen nothing like it before, and are sure you are already better than all of them.", "sentence": "A newcomer wants to be recognised at once from the old hands.", "actor": "newcomer", "wants": "to be recognised at once", "counterpart": "the old hands", "stories": [ 0, 9, 12, 13, 17, 19 ], "story_titles": [ "A Busher’s Letters Home", "Jack the Kaiser Killer", "And Many a Stormy Wind Shall Blow", "Private Valentine", "Simple Simon", "The Battle of Texas" ], "standing": { "low": 12, "middle": 1 }, "stage": "low", "members": [ { "chunk": 0, "story": 0, "predicament": "Someone plucked from a small outfit for a big-time organisation boasts of being ready while never having seen anything like it." }, { "chunk": 1, "story": 0, "predicament": "A newcomer promises the friends back home that success will not change him, then goes off to meet the big boss." }, { "chunk": 5, "story": 0, "predicament": "A newcomer on his first trip with an important outfit imagines the crowds are admiring him in particular." }, { "chunk": 8, "story": 0, "predicament": "A newcomer eager to impress goes at his own colleagues full force during practice and is told to ease off." }, { "chunk": 9, "story": 0, "predicament": "A newcomer who shone once against the old hands mistakes a veteran's offer of help for jealousy." }, { "chunk": 441, "story": 9, "predicament": "A newcomer in a strange, crowded institution sneers at the people around him while feeling sick and sore from his first days." }, { "chunk": 449, "story": 9, "predicament": "Asked a simple question about his past, someone assumes he is famous and launches into a long, boastful account." }, { "chunk": 450, "story": 9, "predicament": "Found to have no useful skill outside his old line of work, a man boasts that it will make him the best at something new." }, { "chunk": 451, "story": 9, "predicament": "A newcomer who finds the routine easy is sure he will be picked to lead, yet chafes at deferring to those above him." }, { "chunk": 546, "story": 12, "predicament": "Crammed into close quarters with strangers he did not choose, a newcomer sizes up a sullen one, a silent one and a joker." }, { "chunk": 575, "story": 13, "predicament": "A newcomer is made to repeat basics he already knows under instructors he can barely understand, and resents it." }, { "chunk": 712, "story": 17, "predicament": "A credulous latecomer joins a bored group that has already decided he will believe anything it tells him." }, { "chunk": 796, "story": 19, "predicament": "A cocksure newcomer offers a clever-sounding suggestion to improve how the group works, and a veteran mocks it into the ground." } ], "options": [ { "text": "Go at it full force to impress them.", "source": "scene:8", "moves": { "relationships.colleagues": "-", "standing": "risk" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Tell them how good you are.", "source": "scene:449", "moves": { "standing": "-", "relationships.colleagues": "-" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Sneer at the rough company you have been thrown in with.", "source": "scene:441", "moves": { "relationships.colleagues": "-" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Take the old hands' advice.", "source": "filled", "moves": { "relationships.colleagues": "+", "discipline": "+" }, "in_group": null }, { "text": "Keep quiet and watch how it is done.", "source": "archetype", "moves": { "savvy": "+" }, "in_group": null } ] }, { "id": "G21", "name": "A tall tale of danger from the old hands", "predicament": "Colleagues who know more than you describe a terrible danger ahead, and you cannot tell whether it is true or a joke at your expense.", "sentence": "A newcomer wants to be safe without being fooled from jokers who know the ropes.", "actor": "newcomer", "wants": "to be safe without being fooled", "counterpart": "jokers who know the ropes", "stories": [ 5, 6, 9, 10, 12, 15, 17 ], "story_titles": [ "The Busher Beats It Hence", "The Busher Abroad", "Jack the Kaiser Killer", "Corporal Punishment", "And Many a Stormy Wind Shall Blow", "Decorated", "Simple Simon" ], "standing": { "middle": 10, "low": 13 }, "stage": "low", "members": [ { "chunk": 207, "story": 5, "predicament": "A jokester among colleagues fills a gullible man's head with frightening tall tales about the journey ahead." }, { "chunk": 208, "story": 5, "predicament": "A colleague piles one absurd danger on another for his own amusement, and the listener takes every word seriously." }, { "chunk": 219, "story": 6, "predicament": "A gullible man is shown ordinary routine records by a joker who convinces him they reveal a near disaster." }, { "chunk": 250, "story": 6, "predicament": "A colleague frightens a gullible traveller with lurid tales about the food ahead, and he vows to go hungry." }, { "chunk": 263, "story": 6, "predicament": "Colleagues stage an absurd night-time scare for a gullible man, who believes it and feels proved right." }, { "chunk": 309, "story": 6, "predicament": "A joker invents a monstrous danger that singles out one victim, and the listener believes every word." }, { "chunk": 312, "story": 6, "predicament": "A man sure he is the likeliest victim of a threat that spares everyone else spends a sleepless night in fear." }, { "chunk": 317, "story": 6, "predicament": "A joker describes a new threat that only attacks those who venture outside, and the gullible listener believes him." }, { "chunk": 323, "story": 6, "predicament": "A gullible man hears yet another invented hazard on the journey, and prepares for it in dead earnest." }, { "chunk": 337, "story": 6, "predicament": "A gullible traveller prepares to guard against absurd dangers at his next stop, on a joker's advice." }, { "chunk": 453, "story": 9, "predicament": "A newcomer is told by a joker that the silent person sleeping next to him is a dangerous criminal, and swallows it whole." }, { "chunk": 456, "story": 9, "predicament": "Already afraid of the person on one side, a newcomer finds the person on his other side apparently talking about killing." }, { "chunk": 463, "story": 9, "predicament": "Just relieved of one fear, a newcomer is fed a new one by the same joker, and soon sinks into gloom." }, { "chunk": 465, "story": 9, "predicament": "A joker convinces a newcomer that a dangerous man plans to follow him home and harm his family there." }, { "chunk": 494, "story": 10, "predicament": "A newly promoted man hears a colleague claim that people in his position are the first to die when things get dangerous." }, { "chunk": 497, "story": 10, "predicament": "A newly promoted man brags about his team, and a colleague tells him his new position makes him the first target." }, { "chunk": 499, "story": 10, "predicament": "Someone passes on a rumour heard third-hand that the group will soon be sent into danger, and a credulous newcomer believes it." }, { "chunk": 501, "story": 10, "predicament": "A man in charge praises his team's good cheer, while a sly subordinate hints that the danger falls on him alone." }, { "chunk": 503, "story": 10, "predicament": "A joker tells a newly promoted man that everyone of his standing, and only them, is about to be sent into danger." }, { "chunk": 556, "story": 12, "predicament": "A man one step up is told that in a disaster people like him must wait until everyone below is safe." }, { "chunk": 557, "story": 12, "predicament": "A joker tells a frightened man of a disaster in which only those of his standing died, because duty kept them waiting." }, { "chunk": 668, "story": 15, "predicament": "Told that the special post he boasted of is the deadliest of all, a man grows eager to avoid it." }, { "chunk": 723, "story": 17, "predicament": "The jokers dare a gullible colleague to prove himself by doing something genuinely dangerous, dressed up as a safe and easy prize." } ], "options": [ { "text": "Believe it and take every precaution.", "source": "scene:310", "moves": { "savvy": "-", "standing": "-" }, "in_group": false }, { "text": "Hide until the danger has passed.", "source": "scene:320", "moves": { "standing": "-", "flags.hid": "set" }, "in_group": false }, { "text": "Check the story with someone who is not in on it.", "source": "filled", "moves": { "savvy": "+" }, "in_group": null }, { "text": "Laugh it off in front of them.", "source": "archetype", "moves": { "standing": "+", "relationships.jokers": "+" }, "in_group": null } ] }, { "id": "G22", "name": "A flattering prospect that may be a joke", "predicament": "Out of nowhere comes the recognition you always felt you deserved, an offer or a summons or an admirer, and the people who brought it are grinning.", "sentence": "A person who feels overlooked wants the recognition from colleagues who may be pranking them.", "actor": "person who feels overlooked", "wants": "the recognition", "counterpart": "colleagues who may be pranking them", "stories": [ 6, 7, 14, 15, 16 ], "story_titles": [ "The Busher Abroad", "The Busher’s Welcome Home", "Stragety and Tragedy", "Decorated", "Sammy Boy" ], "standing": { "middle": 5, "low": 10 }, "stage": "low", "members": [ { "chunk": 225, "story": 6, "predicament": "Someone set up by colleagues to perform at a formal dinner takes the mocking invitation as a tribute to his talents." }, { "chunk": 275, "story": 6, "predicament": "Someone told colleagues have a present for him imagines something lavish, while planning to give their children next to nothing." }, { "chunk": 376, "story": 7, "predicament": "Two jokers talk up a rival's lavish offers within a gullible man's hearing, laying the ground for a hoax." }, { "chunk": 377, "story": 7, "predicament": "A man who fears bad news from home opens a message offering him a fortune from a rival, which is a hoax." }, { "chunk": 378, "story": 7, "predicament": "A man fooled by a fake offer credits his lucky charm, and grudgingly rewards the pranksters who arranged it." }, { "chunk": 619, "story": 14, "predicament": "A joker praises a braggart's foolish essay to the skies and suggests the people at the top will want his advice." }, { "chunk": 621, "story": 14, "predicament": "Someone low in a strict hierarchy receives a letter apparently from the very top, and never suspects it is a prank." }, { "chunk": 622, "story": 14, "predicament": "A prankster, writing as the head of the whole organisation, solemnly asks someone at the bottom for his plans to win." }, { "chunk": 623, "story": 14, "predicament": "The joker behind a prank vouches that it is genuine, and dangles the prospect of a safe post far from danger." }, { "chunk": 631, "story": 14, "predicament": "When the head of the organisation announces a routine visit, a man assumes it is to see him personally." }, { "chunk": 658, "story": 15, "predicament": "A joker convinces a credulous man that exposing a colleague will win him a safe, glamorous post, and coaches him on it." }, { "chunk": 663, "story": 15, "predicament": "As a man prepares to accuse a colleague, the joker behind the scheme hands him forged evidence to clinch it." }, { "chunk": 683, "story": 16, "predicament": "A straight-faced colleague offers a lonely man an introduction that is plainly too good to be true, and he takes it." }, { "chunk": 689, "story": 16, "predicament": "A stranger's eager and oddly worded reply promises exactly what a lonely man hoped for, and he does not question it." }, { "chunk": 706, "story": 16, "predicament": "An admirer eager to meet a lonely man urges him to hurry, and reminds him in passing to bring plenty of money." } ], "options": [ { "text": "Take it at face value and act on it at once.", "source": "scene:379", "moves": { "money": "-", "savvy": "-", "flags.fooled": "set" }, "in_group": false }, { "text": "Show it off to everyone.", "source": "scene:623", "moves": { "standing": "risk" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Check it with the person it is supposed to come from.", "source": "scene:402", "moves": { "savvy": "+", "money": "-" }, "in_group": false }, { "text": "Ask yourself who would be laughing if it were false.", "source": "filled", "moves": { "savvy": "+", "relationships.jokers": "-" }, "in_group": null } ] }, { "id": "G23", "name": "Saving face after being made a fool of", "predicament": "You have been fooled, rejected or beaten, everyone knows it, and you must decide what story to tell about it.", "sentence": "A person made a fool of wants to keep their pride from the people who know what happened.", "actor": "person made a fool of", "wants": "to keep their pride", "counterpart": "the people who know what happened", "stories": [ 1, 6, 7, 9, 10, 12, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 21, 22 ], "story_titles": [ "The Busher Comes Back", "The Busher Abroad", "The Busher’s Welcome Home", "Jack the Kaiser Killer", "Corporal Punishment", "And Many a Stormy Wind Shall Blow", "Decorated", "Sammy Boy", "Simple Simon", "The Busher Reenlists", "The Battle of Texas", "The Courtship of T. Dorgan", "The Busher Pulls a Mays" ], "standing": { "low": 13, "middle": 10 }, "stage": "low", "members": [ { "chunk": 33, "story": 1, "predicament": "Someone freshly demoted is brushed off by the person he was courting, and insists he is glad to be rid of them." }, { "chunk": 57, "story": 1, "predicament": "A man jilted by one fiancée who kept his money declares himself relieved and proposes to the other at once." }, { "chunk": 315, "story": 6, "predicament": "A man who fell for an elaborate hoax decides the colleague who joked about it must be the foolish one." }, { "chunk": 325, "story": 6, "predicament": "Someone who hid from an imaginary danger learns there was never anything to fear, and blames another for not telling him." }, { "chunk": 326, "story": 6, "predicament": "A man who fell for a hoax is told a second, sillier explanation, and believes everyone was fooled together." }, { "chunk": 327, "story": 6, "predicament": "A man who was the only real dupe thinks everyone was fooled, and cheerfully admits it to his friend." }, { "chunk": 405, "story": 7, "predicament": "A man fooled by a hoax congratulates himself on being too clever for a swindle, while his debts mount." }, { "chunk": 406, "story": 7, "predicament": "A man back in debt after a long, costly trip consoles himself that at least he has seen more than the folks back home." }, { "chunk": 471, "story": 9, "predicament": "Someone who fell completely for a colleague's prank tells a friend back home he saw through it all along." }, { "chunk": 496, "story": 10, "predicament": "Told his clever scheme will not work, someone drops it and claims he gave it up out of fairness to his colleagues." }, { "chunk": 563, "story": 12, "predicament": "After a tearful farewell over nothing, a man announces that others tried to make a fool of him but he outwitted them." }, { "chunk": 568, "story": 12, "predicament": "Demoted after being fooled, a man insists he saw through it all along and graciously forgives the pranksters." }, { "chunk": 569, "story": 12, "predicament": "Safely through the danger he dreaded, a man claims he never gave it a thought and pities those who worry." }, { "chunk": 570, "story": 12, "predicament": "Hearing afterwards of a danger he slept through, someone claims he sensed it at the time and was ready for it." }, { "chunk": 669, "story": 15, "predicament": "Someone who fell completely for a colleague's prank claims afterwards that he saw through it all along." }, { "chunk": 673, "story": 15, "predicament": "Embarrassed after a prank, a man claims he outwitted the pranksters and never wanted the reward they dangled." }, { "chunk": 711, "story": 16, "predicament": "Realising a whole romance was his colleagues' prank, a man saves face by recasting the dangerous task it landed him in as bravery." }, { "chunk": 717, "story": 17, "predicament": "Relieved that a newcomer has replaced him as the group's target, a man insists he was always too clever to be fooled." }, { "chunk": 758, "story": 18, "predicament": "Rejected for a modest job, a man boycotts the place and tells himself he was the one who turned it down." }, { "chunk": 804, "story": 19, "predicament": "An admirer a man was made to give up writes again, and he retells the embarrassing ending as though it were his own idea." }, { "chunk": 875, "story": 21, "predicament": "After a costly loss, a man decides the thing he wanted was never worth it, and hides the whole affair from his wife." }, { "chunk": 910, "story": 22, "predicament": "Dumped on the least desirable employer and nearly broke, a couple talk themselves into seeing it as good fortune." }, { "chunk": 911, "story": 22, "predicament": "Discarded by his old employer and snubbed by the rival he courted, a man vows to show them both their mistake." } ], "options": [ { "text": "Say you saw through it all along.", "source": "scene:471", "moves": { "standing": "risk", "relationships.jokers": "-", "flags.saved_face": "set" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Say you never wanted it anyway.", "source": "scene:673", "moves": { "standing": "-", "flags.saved_face": "set" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Blame the one who talked you into it.", "source": "scene:676", "moves": { "relationships.colleagues": "-" }, "in_group": false }, { "text": "Laugh at yourself along with them.", "source": "filled", "moves": { "standing": "+", "relationships.colleagues": "+", "savvy": "+" }, "in_group": null }, { "text": "Tell your friend the truth, at least.", "source": "scene:327", "moves": { "relationships.friend": "+" }, "in_group": true } ] }, { "id": "G24", "name": "Made a public laughing-stock", "predicament": "Colleagues have made you the joke of the whole company, in public, and everyone is waiting to see how you take it.", "sentence": "A butt of the joke wants to have the last laugh from the pranksters and the crowd.", "actor": "butt of the joke", "wants": "to have the last laugh", "counterpart": "the pranksters and the crowd", "stories": [ 0, 6, 9, 10, 13, 15, 21 ], "story_titles": [ "A Busher’s Letters Home", "The Busher Abroad", "Jack the Kaiser Killer", "Corporal Punishment", "Private Valentine", "Decorated", "The Courtship of T. Dorgan" ], "standing": { "low": 7, "middle": 5 }, "stage": "low", "members": [ { "chunk": 18, "story": 0, "predicament": "A newcomer becomes a laughing-stock among colleagues and is then told by the boss, alone, that he is not improving." }, { "chunk": 277, "story": 6, "predicament": "Someone expecting a grand present is made to perform first in front of everyone, while colleagues wait for the joke." }, { "chunk": 278, "story": 6, "predicament": "A man thanks colleagues warmly in public for a gift, then unwraps something they had taken from him as a joke." }, { "chunk": 279, "story": 6, "predicament": "Humiliated by a prank, someone storms off and vows to quit, while one of the pranksters pretends to sympathise." }, { "chunk": 346, "story": 6, "predicament": "A gullible man is talked into a ridiculous public performance in a solemn place, and believes it is expected." }, { "chunk": 472, "story": 9, "predicament": "The neighbour a newcomer feared turns out to be a shy admirer, and he vows to get even with the joker who fooled him." }, { "chunk": 475, "story": 10, "predicament": "A man eager to impress his family on their visit is mocked to his wife by a colleague as a lowly servant." }, { "chunk": 603, "story": 13, "predicament": "At the height of his public triumph, a man is ambushed by a colleague who reads out his private love note." }, { "chunk": 604, "story": 13, "predicament": "Publicly mocked for a private note, a man insists he did not mean it and assumes it was stolen from the woman." }, { "chunk": 606, "story": 13, "predicament": "Awaiting punishment after a humiliating night, a man vows revenge on the colleagues who mock him with a new nickname." }, { "chunk": 678, "story": 15, "predicament": "Colleagues publish a mocking tribute to a man's humiliating beating, and he vows the laugh will be on them in the end." }, { "chunk": 876, "story": 21, "predicament": "The friend a man pitied wins both the prize and the person he wanted, while the man is left mocked by colleagues." } ], "options": [ { "text": "Storm off and vow to quit.", "source": "scene:279", "moves": { "relationships.colleagues": "-", "standing": "-" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Vow to get even.", "source": "scene:606", "moves": { "relationships.jokers": "-", "flags.vowed_revenge": "set" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Insist it was never meant seriously.", "source": "scene:604", "moves": { "standing": "-", "savvy": "-" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Pay them back in the work itself.", "source": "scene:295", "moves": { "standing": "risk", "relationships.jokers": "-" }, "in_group": false }, { "text": "Laugh along and let it pass.", "source": "archetype", "moves": { "relationships.colleagues": "+", "standing": "+" }, "in_group": null } ] }, { "id": "G25", "name": "A cruel joke on someone who cannot take it", "predicament": "Your colleagues are playing a joke on someone weaker that is turning cruel or dangerous, and you are in on it or watching.", "sentence": "A bystander or prankster wants the fun without the blame from the victim and the other jokers.", "actor": "bystander or prankster", "wants": "the fun without the blame", "counterpart": "the victim and the other jokers", "stories": [ 9, 15, 17 ], "story_titles": [ "Jack the Kaiser Killer", "Decorated", "Simple Simon" ], "standing": { "low": 8 }, "stage": "low", "members": [ { "chunk": 462, "story": 9, "predicament": "A joker publicly mocks someone who refuses on principle to join in, and the refuser answers quietly and walks away." }, { "chunk": 644, "story": 15, "predicament": "A man boasts to a friend of a prank he played on a colleague who was already miserable about losing his sweetheart." }, { "chunk": 645, "story": 15, "predicament": "Someone cruelly raises a lonely colleague's hopes with a fake message from home, then mocks him for not laughing." }, { "chunk": 646, "story": 15, "predicament": "A prankster whose victim now refuses to speak to him insists he does not care, while the victim vows to get even." }, { "chunk": 714, "story": 17, "predicament": "A man feels sorry for the butt of a cruel joke but keeps quiet rather than spoil everyone's fun." }, { "chunk": 721, "story": 17, "predicament": "A man watching colleagues fleece a simpleton condemns the swindle loudly, while having done nothing to stop it." }, { "chunk": 724, "story": 17, "predicament": "A man sees a colleague being talked into real danger, thinks about warning him, and decides it is not his business." }, { "chunk": 729, "story": 17, "predicament": "A joker, carrying a prank one step too far, has sent a gullible colleague after something that could get him killed." } ], "options": [ { "text": "Join in; it is only fun.", "source": "scene:645", "moves": { "relationships.colleagues": "+", "relationships.victim": "-" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Say it is none of your business.", "source": "scene:724", "moves": { "relationships.victim": "-", "flags.looked_away": "set" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Condemn it loudly, and do nothing.", "source": "scene:721", "moves": { "standing": "risk" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Tip the victim off quietly.", "source": "scene:714", "moves": { "relationships.victim": "+", "relationships.colleagues": "-" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Stop it before it goes too far.", "source": "filled", "moves": { "relationships.victim": "+", "standing": "+", "relationships.colleagues": "-" }, "in_group": null } ] }, { "id": "G26", "name": "Needled by a colleague", "predicament": "A colleague keeps making digs at you in front of the others, and you want to make them stop.", "sentence": "A person being needled wants to make them stop from a colleague with a sharp tongue.", "actor": "person being needled", "wants": "to make them stop", "counterpart": "a colleague with a sharp tongue", "stories": [ 0, 3, 6, 10, 14, 15 ], "story_titles": [ "A Busher’s Letters Home", "A New Busher Breaks In", "The Busher Abroad", "Corporal Punishment", "Stragety and Tragedy", "Decorated" ], "standing": { "low": 4, "middle": 3 }, "stage": "low", "members": [ { "chunk": 16, "story": 0, "predicament": "A newcomer who nearly comes to blows over a small win then blames colleagues for his own loss and is mocked by the boss." }, { "chunk": 138, "story": 3, "predicament": "A rival threatens to hurt someone in revenge, and he answers with a joke he has to explain to his friend." }, { "chunk": 345, "story": 6, "predicament": "A man mocked about his size in front of the group threatens violence, and thinks the threat ended the teasing." }, { "chunk": 347, "story": 6, "predicament": "A colleague makes a sly joke at someone's expense, and he answers with an insult and thinks he won." }, { "chunk": 474, "story": 10, "predicament": "Someone takes up a new skill already imagining the powerful will depend on him, and a mocking colleague deflates the dream." }, { "chunk": 610, "story": 14, "predicament": "A braggart who covets honours is mocked by a colleague as a coward who would run away, and answers with threats." }, { "chunk": 672, "story": 15, "predicament": "Told by his superior he has been fooled again, a man heads off his colleagues' laughter by threatening the prankster." } ], "options": [ { "text": "Threaten to knock them down.", "source": "scene:345", "moves": { "relationships.colleague": "-", "standing": "risk" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Answer with a joke of your own.", "source": "scene:138", "moves": { "standing": "+" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Take it to someone above.", "source": "filled", "moves": { "relationships.boss": "risk", "relationships.colleague": "-" }, "in_group": null }, { "text": "Let it roll off you.", "source": "archetype", "moves": { "discipline": "+", "relationships.colleague": "+" }, "in_group": null } ] }, { "id": "G27", "name": "Sure a colleague is up to something", "predicament": "You have decided a colleague is plotting against you or betraying everyone, and you have nothing to go on but their manner.", "sentence": "A suspicious person wants to expose them from a colleague under suspicion.", "actor": "suspicious person", "wants": "to expose them", "counterpart": "a colleague under suspicion", "stories": [ 4, 7, 9, 15 ], "story_titles": [ "The Busher’s Kid", "The Busher’s Welcome Home", "Jack the Kaiser Killer", "Decorated" ], "standing": { "middle": 2, "low": 8 }, "stage": "low", "members": [ { "chunk": 144, "story": 4, "predicament": "Someone on a struggling crew decides the others are shirking and suspects a colleague of sabotaging him out of spite." }, { "chunk": 360, "story": 7, "predicament": "A man who was swindled over a trinket now believes his colleagues are scheming to steal it from him." }, { "chunk": 454, "story": 9, "predicament": "Someone who laughed at a stranger's humiliation is warned the stranger never forgives it, and lies awake afraid of revenge." }, { "chunk": 455, "story": 9, "predicament": "Someone who fears a neighbour's revenge reads every silence as a plot and starts rehearsing excuses for what he did." }, { "chunk": 461, "story": 9, "predicament": "A newcomer complains to someone above him about a frightening neighbour, and learns the neighbour is a harmless objector to the whole enterprise." }, { "chunk": 653, "story": 15, "predicament": "A man who fancies himself a sleuth hints that he is about to expose a colleague and win great credit." }, { "chunk": 654, "story": 15, "predicament": "A man decides a silent, unfriendly colleague must be a traitor, on no evidence except his name and his manner." }, { "chunk": 655, "story": 15, "predicament": "Someone reads a colleague's private letter and takes its ordinary endearments for a secret code." }, { "chunk": 662, "story": 15, "predicament": "Sure he has caught a colleague lying, a man secures a meeting with someone above him to lay out his case." }, { "chunk": 670, "story": 15, "predicament": "A man takes his accusation against a colleague to his superior anyway, and the superior is openly sceptical." } ], "options": [ { "text": "Watch them and build a case.", "source": "scene:656", "moves": { "relationships.colleague": "-", "flags.suspicion": "set" }, "in_group": false }, { "text": "Accuse them before the one in charge.", "source": "scene:670", "moves": { "relationships.boss": "risk", "relationships.colleague": "-", "standing": "risk" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Ask them straight out.", "source": "scene:660", "moves": { "relationships.colleague": "risk", "savvy": "+" }, "in_group": false }, { "text": "Let it go: you have no real evidence.", "source": "filled", "moves": { "savvy": "+", "relationships.colleague": "+" }, "in_group": null } ] }, { "id": "G28", "name": "Boasting to people who know better", "predicament": "You have a story about your own exploits to tell, and the people listening were there, or know how it really went.", "sentence": "A storyteller wants to be admired from colleagues who know better.", "actor": "storyteller", "wants": "to be admired", "counterpart": "colleagues who know better", "stories": [ 13, 14, 18, 19, 20, 21 ], "story_titles": [ "Private Valentine", "Stragety and Tragedy", "The Busher Reenlists", "The Battle of Texas", "Along Came Ruth", "The Courtship of T. Dorgan" ], "standing": { "low": 4, "middle": 8 }, "stage": "middle", "members": [ { "chunk": 601, "story": 13, "predicament": "Invited to say a few words, someone delivers a long boastful account of his own career dressed up as patriotism." }, { "chunk": 602, "story": 13, "predicament": "Before an audience, a man tells a story in which his boss begs him to save the day and he does." }, { "chunk": 616, "story": 14, "predicament": "Given a platform, a man writes an essay claiming people in his old line of work are the true thinkers." }, { "chunk": 753, "story": 18, "predicament": "Mixing with old colleagues, a man boasts of how he once outshone one of them and gets a cutting reminder of his failures." }, { "chunk": 778, "story": 19, "predicament": "A man who has been through something hard keeps telling stories about it, and colleagues who stayed home keep contradicting him." }, { "chunk": 781, "story": 19, "predicament": "A returning man's constant stories about his ordeal have become a standing joke among colleagues who have heard them too often." }, { "chunk": 785, "story": 19, "predicament": "A newcomer who turns every remark into a story about his own ordeal is mocked by veterans who have heard it all." }, { "chunk": 797, "story": 19, "predicament": "A newcomer who claims to have been everywhere is exposed by a veteran who simply keeps asking him, in front of everyone." }, { "chunk": 811, "story": 20, "predicament": "A man mocks a colleague for endlessly retelling his exploits away, without noticing he does exactly the same himself." }, { "chunk": 821, "story": 20, "predicament": "On a winning streak, a man boasts to a friend of putting down a celebrated rival with a clever remark." }, { "chunk": 823, "story": 20, "predicament": "Veterans swap stories about a raw newcomer who boasted of outwitting the opposition by failing completely." }, { "chunk": 859, "story": 21, "predicament": "A man boasts to a friend about getting the better of a celebrated opponent, glossing over the moments that went wrong." } ], "options": [ { "text": "Tell it again, bigger.", "source": "scene:601", "moves": { "standing": "risk", "relationships.colleagues": "-" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Snap that you were the one who was actually there.", "source": "scene:778", "moves": { "relationships.colleagues": "-" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Mock the other braggart, and keep telling yours.", "source": "scene:811", "moves": { "savvy": "-", "relationships.colleagues": "risk" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Let someone else tell it.", "source": "filled", "moves": { "relationships.colleagues": "+" }, "in_group": null } ] }, { "id": "G29", "name": "A new skill that looks easy", "predicament": "You are faced with something you have never done, and you are sure your talent at your own work will carry you straight through it.", "sentence": "A confident novice wants to master it at once from teachers and people who know it.", "actor": "confident novice", "wants": "to master it at once", "counterpart": "teachers and people who know it", "stories": [ 6, 10, 11, 14, 18 ], "story_titles": [ "The Busher Abroad", "Corporal Punishment", "Purls Before Swine", "Stragety and Tragedy", "The Busher Reenlists" ], "standing": { "middle": 5, "low": 9 }, "stage": "low", "members": [ { "chunk": 296, "story": 6, "predicament": "A braggart sneers at an unfamiliar local skill and is promptly challenged by a local to try it himself." }, { "chunk": 297, "story": 6, "predicament": "A man sure an unfamiliar local pastime is easy wagers borrowed money that he will master it at once." }, { "chunk": 298, "story": 6, "predicament": "Someone certain of winning an easy bet writes next day that he was robbed and wants to leave the place." }, { "chunk": 299, "story": 6, "predicament": "A man who scorned a local pastime refuses a chance to practise, and finds straight away that it is harder than it looks." }, { "chunk": 300, "story": 6, "predicament": "A boaster who fails at once at a pastime he scorned cries robbery, while his own backer insists he lost fairly." }, { "chunk": 473, "story": 10, "predicament": "A newcomer signs up for a free course, convinced it will set him above the people around him who did not bother." }, { "chunk": 480, "story": 10, "predicament": "After a single lesson, someone shows off his new learning to a friend back home and declares the whole subject easy." }, { "chunk": 488, "story": 10, "predicament": "A newcomer who considers himself an expert corrects his instructor and is corrected back, and has to swallow his pride." }, { "chunk": 493, "story": 10, "predicament": "Someone gives up a course after a week, claiming his duties are too important and the teacher does not know the subject." }, { "chunk": 512, "story": 11, "predicament": "Someone lies about his experience to join a team of educated people he sneers at, sure natural talent will carry him." }, { "chunk": 515, "story": 11, "predicament": "Having pushed his way onto a team, someone quits and claims it was beneath him and a waste of his valuable time." }, { "chunk": 516, "story": 11, "predicament": "Caught out on his first day in a role he lied his way into, someone gets hurt and quits with a grand excuse." }, { "chunk": 625, "story": 14, "predicament": "Told he must master a new skill for the important post he imagines, someone claims he already has it." }, { "chunk": 746, "story": 18, "predicament": "Without any experience in a new line, a man assures a friend that he has never yet failed at anything he tried." } ], "options": [ { "text": "Bet that you can do it first time.", "source": "scene:297", "moves": { "money": "risk", "standing": "risk" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Lie about your experience to get in.", "source": "scene:512", "moves": { "standing": "risk", "flags.lied": "set" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Correct the instructor.", "source": "scene:488", "moves": { "relationships.boss": "-" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Quit, and say it was beneath you.", "source": "scene:493", "moves": { "standing": "-" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Take the lessons and the practice.", "source": "filled", "moves": { "discipline": "+" }, "in_group": null } ] }, { "id": "G30", "name": "You swore you were above it", "predicament": "You said loudly that you would never stoop to something, and now you want to do it after all.", "sentence": "A proud person wants the thing without the loss of face from those who heard the vow.", "actor": "proud person", "wants": "the thing without the loss of face", "counterpart": "those who heard the vow", "stories": [ 2, 13, 14, 18 ], "story_titles": [ "The Busher’s Honeymoon", "Private Valentine", "Stragety and Tragedy", "The Busher Reenlists" ], "standing": { "middle": 2, "low": 8 }, "stage": "low", "members": [ { "chunk": 71, "story": 2, "predicament": "A man pressed by his wife and her sister to take an expensive home refuses flatly, sure the matter is closed." }, { "chunk": 72, "story": 2, "predicament": "A man who swore he would never take the expensive home has taken it, and persuades himself it was his own bargain." }, { "chunk": 582, "story": 13, "predicament": "Invited to show off a talent in public, a man says he is too busy and above it, while clearly tempted." }, { "chunk": 583, "story": 13, "predicament": "Someone who scorned a vain project talks tough about his opponents, then quietly sets to work on the project anyway." }, { "chunk": 584, "story": 13, "predicament": "A man proudly shows a friend back home the clumsy work he produced after claiming he was above producing it." }, { "chunk": 613, "story": 14, "predicament": "Asked to contribute to a colleague's project, someone claims it is beneath him, still sore at being mocked in print years ago." }, { "chunk": 614, "story": 14, "predicament": "Having refused to contribute, a man sneers that the colleagues running a project are too ignorant to do it well." }, { "chunk": 615, "story": 14, "predicament": "Someone who swore he was above a colleague's project does it anyway and pretends he was misunderstood into it." }, { "chunk": 744, "story": 18, "predicament": "Back from a long absence and patched up, a man announces he is giving up his old line of work for good." }, { "chunk": 745, "story": 18, "predicament": "A man who has seen bigger things decides his old work is beneath him, and assumes he can rise quickly in something new." } ], "options": [ { "text": "Swear you will never do it.", "source": "scene:71", "moves": { "standing": "+", "money": "risk" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Do it, and say you were misunderstood into it.", "source": "scene:615", "moves": { "standing": "-" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Say you were only stalling.", "source": "scene:582", "moves": { "standing": "risk", "savvy": "-" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Change your mind openly.", "source": "filled", "moves": { "savvy": "+" }, "in_group": null } ] }, { "id": "G31", "name": "In the spotlight, sure you are the hit", "predicament": "You have been given a stage in front of important people, and you are sure the laughter and applause are for you.", "sentence": "A performer wants to be admired from an audience that may be laughing.", "actor": "performer", "wants": "to be admired", "counterpart": "an audience that may be laughing", "stories": [ 5, 6, 7, 13 ], "story_titles": [ "The Busher Beats It Hence", "The Busher Abroad", "The Busher’s Welcome Home", "Private Valentine" ], "standing": { "middle": 7, "low": 2 }, "stage": "middle", "members": [ { "chunk": 196, "story": 5, "predicament": "Someone asked to speak alongside important people believes the crowd applauded him most, while his wife stays silent." }, { "chunk": 226, "story": 6, "predicament": "A nervous man introduced with a joke stands up before a formal gathering, including wives, to recite his own verse." }, { "chunk": 228, "story": 6, "predicament": "Someone cheered in mockery thinks he has found a new talent, while lying awake at night missing his family." }, { "chunk": 245, "story": 6, "predicament": "Someone asked to speak at a formal dinner uses the occasion to excuse his own recent failure in verse." }, { "chunk": 306, "story": 6, "predicament": "Someone who performs a clumsy boastful tribute at a society dinner is sure he was the hit of the night." }, { "chunk": 381, "story": 7, "predicament": "A man about to defect blames the bosses for underpaying him, and is glad his wife is not along to spend." }, { "chunk": 388, "story": 7, "predicament": "Someone takes the crowd's respect for a great personage as applause for himself, and bows in front of everyone." }, { "chunk": 596, "story": 13, "predicament": "A married man blames fate for the women he imagines pursue him, and pretends reluctance while agreeing to perform in public." }, { "chunk": 600, "story": 13, "predicament": "Given a stage before his colleagues, a man who craves applause is cheered as he begins a speech about himself." } ], "options": [ { "text": "Give it everything, and bask in the applause.", "source": "scene:306", "moves": { "standing": "risk" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Use the platform to excuse your failures.", "source": "scene:245", "moves": { "standing": "-" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Say you are too busy, then agree.", "source": "scene:596", "moves": { "standing": "risk", "savvy": "-" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Keep it short and thank your hosts.", "source": "filled", "moves": { "standing": "+" }, "in_group": null } ] }, { "id": "G32", "name": "A bargain that is a swindle", "predicament": "A rare bargain or a sure tip has come your way through someone friendly, and it must be decided now.", "sentence": "A buyer wants something for nothing from a friendly seller or tipster.", "actor": "buyer", "wants": "something for nothing", "counterpart": "a friendly seller or tipster", "stories": [ 6, 7, 17, 21 ], "story_titles": [ "The Busher Abroad", "The Busher’s Welcome Home", "Simple Simon", "The Courtship of T. Dorgan" ], "standing": { "middle": 15, "low": 2 }, "stage": "middle", "members": [ { "chunk": 350, "story": 6, "predicament": "A joker notices a stingy man has spent nothing, and baits him with a hint of a secret opportunity." }, { "chunk": 351, "story": 6, "predicament": "A colleague tells a man superstitious about his luck of a rare charm going cheap from a stranger in the street." }, { "chunk": 353, "story": 6, "predicament": "A man is steered by a colleague toward a stranger selling a lucky charm, and the stranger is conveniently still waiting." }, { "chunk": 354, "story": 6, "predicament": "A man offered an obvious fake accepts every flimsy explanation, and is held back only by having no cash." }, { "chunk": 355, "story": 6, "predicament": "A man eager for a street bargain borrows money from the boss to pay for it, missing the boss's joke." }, { "chunk": 356, "story": 6, "predicament": "A man cheated in a staged sale beats the price down a little, and thanks the accomplice with a gift." }, { "chunk": 361, "story": 7, "predicament": "A colleague openly shows a man that his treasured charm costs pennies, and he still insists his own is genuine." }, { "chunk": 362, "story": 7, "predicament": "A man cannot tell his prized charm from cheap copies, and accepts an absurd test proving it is the real one." }, { "chunk": 713, "story": 17, "predicament": "A man passes on a colleague's harmless enthusiasm to the jokers, who promptly begin selling him worthless junk at high prices." }, { "chunk": 720, "story": 17, "predicament": "Colleagues stage an elaborate show around a worthless trinket until the gullible one offers everything he has, and more on credit." }, { "chunk": 852, "story": 21, "predicament": "A man eyes something far beyond his budget and convinces himself the seller likes him enough to lower the price." }, { "chunk": 860, "story": 21, "predicament": "A seller invents a rival buyer and a special fondness for a man, and talks him into paying just to wait." }, { "chunk": 869, "story": 21, "predicament": "Out late with flattering new acquaintances, a man is let in on what they call a sure secret." }, { "chunk": 870, "story": 21, "predicament": "A man is told the outcome of a contest has been fixed in advance, and urged to bet everything on it." }, { "chunk": 871, "story": 21, "predicament": "Pressed to hand over money at once to a stranger's friend, a man hesitates, yet still passes the tip on as certain." }, { "chunk": 872, "story": 21, "predicament": "Goaded by colleagues who doubt his inside tip, a man stakes the whole sum he hoped to spend on a treat." }, { "chunk": 874, "story": 21, "predicament": "Having lost money on a tip, a man refuses to blame those who gave it, and insists he would have chosen right alone." } ], "options": [ { "text": "Snap it up before it is gone, with borrowed money if need be.", "source": "scene:355", "moves": { "money": "-", "savvy": "-" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Haggle a little, then buy.", "source": "scene:356", "moves": { "money": "-" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Bet everything on it to shut the doubters up.", "source": "scene:872", "moves": { "money": "risk", "relationships.colleagues": "risk" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Pass the tip on to a friend.", "source": "scene:871", "moves": { "relationships.friend": "risk" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Walk away from anything that must be decided tonight.", "source": "filled", "moves": { "savvy": "+" }, "in_group": null } ] }, { "id": "G33", "name": "Expected to pay, and you hate paying", "predicament": "Everyone around you tips, treats and gives presents as a matter of course, and you begrudge every cent.", "sentence": "A tight-fisted person wants to keep their money from people who expect to be paid.", "actor": "tight-fisted person", "wants": "to keep their money", "counterpart": "people who expect to be paid", "stories": [ 0, 1, 2, 4, 6 ], "story_titles": [ "A Busher’s Letters Home", "The Busher Comes Back", "The Busher’s Honeymoon", "The Busher’s Kid", "The Busher Abroad" ], "standing": { "low": 3, "middle": 7 }, "stage": "middle", "members": [ { "chunk": 21, "story": 0, "predicament": "A newcomer eager for a big assignment asks the boss for it and misses the plain meaning of the refusal." }, { "chunk": 43, "story": 1, "predicament": "Someone who half believes an old sweetheart's denial tells her he is promised to another, then frets over the pennies it cost him." }, { "chunk": 47, "story": 1, "predicament": "A country newcomer out with worldly colleagues is left holding the bill and does not understand what is expected of him." }, { "chunk": 64, "story": 2, "predicament": "A newlywed who has spent more in three days than he expected counts every penny and begrudges even the customary fees." }, { "chunk": 157, "story": 4, "predicament": "A worried father's anxious messages cost him money for news he already had, and he blames his wife's judgement." }, { "chunk": 237, "story": 6, "predicament": "A tight-fisted traveller is told he must tip everyone who served him, and grumbles over a trifling sum." }, { "chunk": 247, "story": 6, "predicament": "A tight-fisted husband abroad buys his wife nothing, and plans to send her a gift that was given away free." }, { "chunk": 256, "story": 6, "predicament": "A traveller told he owes the staff another tip decides to offer them a verse of his own instead of money." }, { "chunk": 330, "story": 6, "predicament": "A tight-fisted husband marvels at a new way to reach home, and decides it is too dear to spend on his wife." }, { "chunk": 333, "story": 6, "predicament": "A stingy man in a bustling market refuses to spend a penny, insisting he is careful rather than cheap." } ], "options": [ { "text": "Pay the least you can.", "source": "scene:237", "moves": { "money": "+", "standing": "-" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Refuse, and call it graft.", "source": "scene:333", "moves": { "money": "+", "relationships.colleagues": "-" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Give something that cost you nothing.", "source": "scene:247", "moves": { "relationships.spouse": "-" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Pay what is customary and forget it.", "source": "filled", "moves": { "money": "-", "standing": "+" }, "in_group": null } ] }, { "id": "G34", "name": "Leaning on the friend back home", "predicament": "There is one old friend who always comes through, and you need them again, though you have given little back.", "sentence": "A person in a fix wants help, again from a loyal old friend.", "actor": "person in a fix", "wants": "help, again", "counterpart": "a loyal old friend", "stories": [ 2, 3, 4, 6, 12, 13, 22 ], "story_titles": [ "The Busher’s Honeymoon", "A New Busher Breaks In", "The Busher’s Kid", "The Busher Abroad", "And Many a Stormy Wind Shall Blow", "Private Valentine", "The Busher Pulls a Mays" ], "standing": { "middle": 8, "low": 2 }, "stage": "middle", "members": [ { "chunk": 73, "story": 2, "predicament": "Someone paying for two homes asks a friend back home to talk his way out of a promise he made." }, { "chunk": 77, "story": 2, "predicament": "A man blames the friend who tried to help him for failing, while his wife keeps spending his money on her relatives." }, { "chunk": 98, "story": 2, "predicament": "Someone rescued by a friend's loan immediately decides to go back to the boss he defied and ask for more money." }, { "chunk": 109, "story": 3, "predicament": "A debtor assures the friend lending him money that repayment is certain, while planning to dodge rent on the home he left." }, { "chunk": 125, "story": 3, "predicament": "A debtor who promised to repay his friend on the first payday explains why he cannot, after planning a feast." }, { "chunk": 183, "story": 4, "predicament": "A man going to stay with a generous friend haggles over small costs and hints at the supper he expects." }, { "chunk": 332, "story": 6, "predicament": "A tight-fisted man passes on an unwanted free gift to his friends as their present, and half hopes to be paid for it." }, { "chunk": 561, "story": 12, "predicament": "Believing he will die, a man asks a friend to look in on his wife and make sure she is raising their child properly." }, { "chunk": 579, "story": 13, "predicament": "Someone far from home scolds an old friend for not writing, and condescends to him for living an uneventful life." }, { "chunk": 898, "story": 22, "predicament": "Sure of a starring part in a big event, a man invites an old friend to come and watch him shine." } ], "options": [ { "text": "Ask for another loan.", "source": "scene:98", "moves": { "money": "+", "relationships.friend": "-" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Blame the friend when their help falls short.", "source": "scene:77", "moves": { "relationships.friend": "-", "standing": "-" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Send them something that cost you nothing.", "source": "scene:332", "moves": { "relationships.friend": "risk" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Repay what you owe before spending on yourself.", "source": "scene:140", "moves": { "money": "-", "relationships.friend": "+" }, "in_group": false } ] }, { "id": "G35", "name": "Whose money is it at home?", "predicament": "Your spouse is spending money you earned on things you think you cannot afford, and wants more.", "sentence": "A earner wants to keep control of the money from a spouse with other ideas.", "actor": "earner", "wants": "to keep control of the money", "counterpart": "a spouse with other ideas", "stories": [ 2, 4, 6, 8, 18, 21 ], "story_titles": [ "The Busher’s Honeymoon", "The Busher’s Kid", "The Busher Abroad", "Call for Mr. Keefe!", "The Busher Reenlists", "The Courtship of T. Dorgan" ], "standing": { "middle": 14, "low": 2 }, "stage": "middle", "members": [ { "chunk": 66, "story": 2, "predicament": "A tight-fisted newlywed finds that married life doubles his costs and that his in-laws' treats come with obligations." }, { "chunk": 70, "story": 2, "predicament": "A husband watches his wife shop beyond their means and sulks because a colleague was offered a treat he was not." }, { "chunk": 74, "story": 2, "predicament": "A couple already stretched spend more to furnish a borrowed home to the wife's taste, calling the imitations bargains." }, { "chunk": 75, "story": 2, "predicament": "A man whose savings are draining away on furnishings and his wife's family insists he is lucky and has nothing to worry about." }, { "chunk": 80, "story": 2, "predicament": "A man who cannot afford it watches his brother-in-law make a showy purchase in front of both their wives." }, { "chunk": 81, "story": 2, "predicament": "A man shamed by a relative's showy gift overspends to keep up, and plans another gift just to outdo him." }, { "chunk": 82, "story": 2, "predicament": "A man living beyond his means is pushed into ever costlier celebrations by the company he now keeps." }, { "chunk": 162, "story": 4, "predicament": "A wife wants to see her husband's big moment, but he refuses to pay for help with the baby and orders her home." }, { "chunk": 290, "story": 6, "predicament": "A man's long-awaited message from his wife is full of resentment and asks for the rest of his savings." }, { "chunk": 291, "story": 6, "predicament": "A husband reads his wife's bitter message as loving jealousy and sends her the last of his savings." }, { "chunk": 411, "story": 8, "predicament": "A husband resents the bills his wife has run up while he was away, and she answers that she was sick of being shut in." }, { "chunk": 756, "story": 18, "predicament": "A man grumbles at his wife's spending while she insists it is her own money, though he expects to pay the bills." }, { "chunk": 757, "story": 18, "predicament": "A man argues against a costly family gift his wife has set her heart on, loses as usual, and pretends not to mind." }, { "chunk": 842, "story": 21, "predicament": "A man's wife has plans for his raise, and he stalls her while privately scorning the idea of her having any control." }, { "chunk": 861, "story": 21, "predicament": "A man commits money to a purchase counting on his wife to pay half, and has already decided she may not use it." }, { "chunk": 863, "story": 21, "predicament": "A man asks his wife to pay half for something, then refuses her the equal share of it she asks for in return." } ], "options": [ { "text": "Hand it over to keep the peace.", "source": "scene:291", "moves": { "money": "-", "relationships.spouse": "+" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Refuse flatly.", "source": "scene:162", "moves": { "money": "+", "relationships.spouse": "-" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Spend more yourself to keep up with the relatives.", "source": "scene:81", "moves": { "money": "-", "relationships.inlaws": "-" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Refuse them an equal share in what you buy together.", "source": "scene:863", "moves": { "relationships.spouse": "-", "money": "risk" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Sit down together and agree what you can afford.", "source": "filled", "moves": { "savvy": "+", "relationships.spouse": "+" }, "in_group": null } ] }, { "id": "G36", "name": "A spouse who earns more", "predicament": "Your spouse has gone into work of their own and is doing better at it than you are at yours.", "sentence": "A spouse who was the earner wants to stay the head of the house from a spouse who earns more.", "actor": "spouse who was the earner", "wants": "to stay the head of the house", "counterpart": "a spouse who earns more", "stories": [ 8, 18, 20, 22 ], "story_titles": [ "Call for Mr. Keefe!", "The Busher Reenlists", "Along Came Ruth", "The Busher Pulls a Mays" ], "standing": { "middle": 12, "low": 2 }, "stage": "middle", "members": [ { "chunk": 412, "story": 8, "predicament": "A husband who scolds his wife's spending is told she will go out and earn more than he does, and he laughs at her." }, { "chunk": 415, "story": 8, "predicament": "A husband hands over money when his wife cries, then finds she has used it to start a business of her own without asking him." }, { "chunk": 416, "story": 8, "predicament": "A husband describes his wife's new venture with baffled condescension, certain it cannot work but unable to say exactly why." }, { "chunk": 417, "story": 8, "predicament": "A man visits his wife's new business, predicts it will fail, and expects her to come running back to him for money." }, { "chunk": 422, "story": 8, "predicament": "A man who predicted his wife's venture would fail learns it is paying its way, and covers his surprise with jokes." }, { "chunk": 427, "story": 8, "predicament": "A husband who mocked his wife's venture now boasts of her success, while his own work keeps him on the sidelines." }, { "chunk": 752, "story": 18, "predicament": "A man out of work is teased by his earning wife that she could employ him at home, and dodges the chores." }, { "chunk": 767, "story": 18, "predicament": "A man's wife teases him for depending on her income, while he vows to walk away if his old employer haggles." }, { "chunk": 810, "story": 20, "predicament": "Someone above points out that a man's wife earns more than he does, and makes any raise depend on results." }, { "chunk": 820, "story": 20, "predicament": "A man's wife asks his advice about a big business move, and he knows she will make her own choice whatever he says." }, { "chunk": 824, "story": 20, "predicament": "A man learns by post that his wife has gone ahead and made the large business move she asked his advice on." }, { "chunk": 825, "story": 20, "predicament": "A man is sure his wife is being taken in by her new partners, and knows she will not listen to him." }, { "chunk": 899, "story": 22, "predicament": "A man welcomes his wife's giving up her own earnings, sure his own income and prospects will be more than enough." }, { "chunk": 901, "story": 22, "predicament": "As his standing at work slips, a man celebrates his wife giving up her earnings, as though money will take care of itself." } ], "options": [ { "text": "Laugh at the idea that it could work.", "source": "scene:412", "moves": { "relationships.spouse": "-", "savvy": "-" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Brag about it as if it were your doing.", "source": "scene:427", "moves": { "relationships.spouse": "+", "standing": "risk" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Push them to give it up and stay home.", "source": "scene:899", "moves": { "relationships.spouse": "-", "money": "-" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Give your advice, and leave the decision to them.", "source": "scene:820", "moves": { "relationships.spouse": "+", "savvy": "+" }, "in_group": true } ] }, { "id": "G37", "name": "A quarrel at home: who gives way?", "predicament": "You and your spouse have fallen out, one of you has walked out or threatened to, and someone has to give way.", "sentence": "A spouse wants to win, or to have peace from their spouse.", "actor": "spouse", "wants": "to win, or to have peace", "counterpart": "their spouse", "stories": [ 2, 3, 4, 8, 11, 20 ], "story_titles": [ "The Busher’s Honeymoon", "A New Busher Breaks In", "The Busher’s Kid", "Call for Mr. Keefe!", "Purls Before Swine", "Along Came Ruth" ], "standing": { "middle": 10, "low": 1 }, "stage": "middle", "members": [ { "chunk": 67, "story": 2, "predicament": "A newlywed paying for a home he cannot use teases his bride about old flames and finds she will not be ordered about." }, { "chunk": 68, "story": 2, "predicament": "A husband sure his wife's walkout is a bluff goes for a drink instead, and lets her family draw him further in." }, { "chunk": 69, "story": 2, "predicament": "A husband who had to go and fetch his wife back tells his friend she came home because he gave the order." }, { "chunk": 97, "story": 2, "predicament": "A husband confesses his failures to his wife, hears she regrets marrying him, and cannot even afford to drown it." }, { "chunk": 141, "story": 3, "predicament": "A wife who walked out calls with news that changes everything, and her husband takes her back at once." }, { "chunk": 179, "story": 4, "predicament": "A deceived husband plans to take the child and leave, then patches it up and moves his family near his old friends." }, { "chunk": 181, "story": 4, "predicament": "A husband threatening to take the child is outmatched by his wife, and softened when she says she only wanted to see him admired." }, { "chunk": 182, "story": 4, "predicament": "A husband who pays to learn he has no case forgives his wife, then accepts a friend's offer to put them up." }, { "chunk": 437, "story": 8, "predicament": "After losing his appeal a man blames his wife's success for his fate, then cannot bear to scold her when she cries." }, { "chunk": 527, "story": 11, "predicament": "A man scolds his wife for going out while he was away, then loses his last hours home to her guests." }, { "chunk": 832, "story": 20, "predicament": "After his wife calmly explains away his jealousy, a man tells a friend he was only pretending to be upset." } ], "options": [ { "text": "Call their bluff and go out.", "source": "scene:68", "moves": { "relationships.spouse": "-" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Go after them and make it up.", "source": "scene:69", "moves": { "relationships.spouse": "+", "standing": "-" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Give way when they cry.", "source": "scene:437", "moves": { "relationships.spouse": "+" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Threaten lawyers.", "source": "scene:126", "moves": { "relationships.spouse": "-", "money": "-" }, "in_group": false }, { "text": "Tell your friend you laid down the law.", "source": "scene:832", "moves": { "relationships.friend": "+", "flags.tall_tale": "set" }, "in_group": true } ] }, { "id": "G38", "name": "Coming home to find them gone", "predicament": "You come home, perhaps to surprise them, and find nobody there and nobody who can say where they went.", "sentence": "A returning spouse wants a welcome from a family that went on without them.", "actor": "returning spouse", "wants": "a welcome", "counterpart": "a family that went on without them", "stories": [ 2, 7, 11, 20 ], "story_titles": [ "The Busher’s Honeymoon", "The Busher’s Welcome Home", "Purls Before Swine", "Along Came Ruth" ], "standing": { "middle": 7, "low": 3 }, "stage": "middle", "members": [ { "chunk": 99, "story": 2, "predicament": "Someone who counted on the boss welcoming him back finds everyone gone, and is left broke and alone." }, { "chunk": 102, "story": 2, "predicament": "A man let go from his post comes home to find his wife has left him, and begs a friend for help." }, { "chunk": 398, "story": 7, "predicament": "Someone who swore he was leaving for a rival is suddenly staying put, and finds his wife has gone on without him." }, { "chunk": 399, "story": 7, "predicament": "A man returns home after months away to find no one there but unpaid bills, and a note from his wife." }, { "chunk": 400, "story": 7, "predicament": "A father sobs on his own doorstep over his wife's absence, and learns he owes a relative her travel money." }, { "chunk": 401, "story": 7, "predicament": "A man enters his abandoned home to find it filthy and wasteful, and must scrape for change to make one call." }, { "chunk": 524, "story": 11, "predicament": "A man who comes home unannounced to surprise his wife finds nobody there and no one who knows where she went." }, { "chunk": 525, "story": 11, "predicament": "Locked out of his own home, a man wastes hours chasing unhelpful neighbours for word of where his family has gone." }, { "chunk": 526, "story": 11, "predicament": "A man waiting all night in an empty home drinks alone, then learns his family was out enjoying themselves without him." }, { "chunk": 826, "story": 20, "predicament": "Coming home proud of a success, a man finds his wife absorbed in her own new work and uninterested in his news." } ], "options": [ { "text": "Drink alone until they come.", "source": "scene:526", "moves": { "discipline": "-", "relationships.spouse": "-" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Wait up, and have it out when they come in.", "source": "scene:527", "moves": { "relationships.spouse": "-", "standing": "+" }, "in_group": false }, { "text": "Go after them.", "source": "scene:69", "moves": { "relationships.spouse": "+", "standing": "-" }, "in_group": false }, { "text": "Let them know next time you are coming.", "source": "filled", "moves": { "relationships.spouse": "+", "savvy": "+" }, "in_group": null } ] }, { "id": "G39", "name": "Suspecting your spouse", "predicament": "Something tells you your spouse has a life you do not know about, and you cannot tell if it is innocent.", "sentence": "A jealous spouse wants the truth, and to be the one who matters from their spouse.", "actor": "jealous spouse", "wants": "the truth, and to be the one who matters", "counterpart": "their spouse", "stories": [ 4, 12, 20 ], "story_titles": [ "The Busher’s Kid", "And Many a Stormy Wind Shall Blow", "Along Came Ruth" ], "standing": { "middle": 6, "low": 1 }, "stage": "middle", "members": [ { "chunk": 176, "story": 4, "predicament": "A man who has just praised his wife's loyalty discovers she deceived him, and declares the marriage over." }, { "chunk": 177, "story": 4, "predicament": "During a bitter quarrel a relative drops a hint that a man's wife has been deceiving him all along." }, { "chunk": 178, "story": 4, "predicament": "A man learns that his boss paid his wife to stay home and that she deceived him, and drinks himself senseless." }, { "chunk": 562, "story": 12, "predicament": "Believing he will die, a jealous husband asks a friend to keep his widow from remarrying and to make her honour his memory." }, { "chunk": 827, "story": 20, "predicament": "Waiting at home for a wife who is out late, a man takes a call from a stranger asking whether she got back safely." }, { "chunk": 828, "story": 20, "predicament": "A man jealously demands his wife explain a stranger's call, and she refuses, turning his own admirers back on him." }, { "chunk": 834, "story": 20, "predicament": "Just before a crucial test, a man leaves his post to confront his wife about her new partner, and makes threats." } ], "options": [ { "text": "Demand an explanation.", "source": "scene:828", "moves": { "relationships.spouse": "-" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Confront the stranger.", "source": "scene:834", "moves": { "relationships.spouse": "-", "standing": "risk" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Plan to take the children and go.", "source": "scene:179", "moves": { "relationships.spouse": "-", "relationships.family": "risk" }, "in_group": false }, { "text": "Ask calmly, and believe the answer.", "source": "filled", "moves": { "relationships.spouse": "+", "savvy": "+" }, "in_group": null } ] }, { "id": "G40", "name": "Far away, and no word from home", "predicament": "You are far from your family and have heard nothing for too long, and you cannot tell if they are ill or just not writing.", "sentence": "A person far from home wants news of the family from a silent family.", "actor": "person far from home", "wants": "news of the family", "counterpart": "a silent family", "stories": [ 4, 6, 7, 9, 13 ], "story_titles": [ "The Busher’s Kid", "The Busher Abroad", "The Busher’s Welcome Home", "Jack the Kaiser Killer", "Private Valentine" ], "standing": { "middle": 9, "low": 3 }, "stage": "middle", "members": [ { "chunk": 155, "story": 4, "predicament": "A father away on a long trip hears nothing from home and works himself into a state imagining something is wrong." }, { "chunk": 156, "story": 4, "predicament": "A worried father swears he will leave work without permission if his child is ill, then hears everything is fine." }, { "chunk": 231, "story": 6, "predicament": "A man who has heard nothing from home decides his wife or child must be ill, and considers abandoning the trip." }, { "chunk": 236, "story": 6, "predicament": "A man who is the butt of constant jokes about his manners is convinced his silent family must be ill." }, { "chunk": 257, "story": 6, "predicament": "A man long without word from home swings between fearing the worst and showing off at the party on board." }, { "chunk": 271, "story": 6, "predicament": "A man with no word from home plans to go straight back if something is wrong, and meanwhile swallows every tall tale." }, { "chunk": 289, "story": 6, "predicament": "Someone who has waited weeks for word from home finally hears his name called out when the post is handed round." }, { "chunk": 364, "story": 7, "predicament": "A father long away yearns for news of his growing child while dragged through sights he cares nothing for." }, { "chunk": 365, "story": 7, "predicament": "A man who hears nothing from home resents his wife's silence, and is hauled along by colleagues who enjoy his company." }, { "chunk": 468, "story": 9, "predicament": "A man waits all day among crowds of visiting families for his own, who never arrive, while imagining a foe watching him." }, { "chunk": 470, "story": 9, "predicament": "A man learns his wife and child cried all night thinking he had abandoned them, because of a message that never arrived." }, { "chunk": 599, "story": 13, "predicament": "Starved for news, a man gets a short, self-absorbed letter from his wife that never asks how he is." } ], "options": [ { "text": "Swear you will go home if no word comes.", "source": "scene:233", "moves": { "standing": "risk", "relationships.family": "+" }, "in_group": false }, { "text": "Let the worry wreck your work.", "source": "scene:155", "moves": { "discipline": "-" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Resent their silence.", "source": "scene:365", "moves": { "relationships.spouse": "-" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Pay for a wire, and ask.", "source": "filled", "moves": { "money": "-", "relationships.family": "+" }, "in_group": null }, { "text": "Keep your mind on the work and trust they are well.", "source": "filled", "moves": { "discipline": "+" }, "in_group": null } ] }, { "id": "G41", "name": "Work pulls against a promise to your family", "predicament": "You promised your family you would be with them, and the people you work for want you somewhere else.", "sentence": "A worker with a family wants to keep both happy from the boss and the family.", "actor": "worker with a family", "wants": "to keep both happy", "counterpart": "the boss and the family", "stories": [ 1, 4, 5, 9, 10, 17 ], "story_titles": [ "The Busher Comes Back", "The Busher’s Kid", "The Busher Beats It Hence", "Jack the Kaiser Killer", "Corporal Punishment", "Simple Simon" ], "standing": { "low": 4, "middle": 6 }, "stage": "middle", "members": [ { "chunk": 36, "story": 1, "predicament": "Someone suddenly recalled to a better post must leave a new fiancée behind, promising to send for her once he can afford it." }, { "chunk": 171, "story": 4, "predicament": "Someone begs to leave his post mid-task over fear for his child, and the boss threatens his pay if he does." }, { "chunk": 185, "story": 5, "predicament": "Someone who has broken a promise to come home explains it away and frets over what he owes for the cancelled plans." }, { "chunk": 186, "story": 5, "predicament": "Someone who turned down a big trip for his family's sake is flattered into staying a little longer, delaying his promise again." }, { "chunk": 189, "story": 5, "predicament": "Someone humiliated in a show performance is coaxed by the bosses into joining a trip he had refused, leaving his family behind." }, { "chunk": 202, "story": 5, "predicament": "A man who swore to his family and friend he would come home announces he is leaving for months instead." }, { "chunk": 205, "story": 5, "predicament": "A man who agreed to a long absence reverses himself overnight, sure his wife will be delighted by the surprise." }, { "chunk": 459, "story": 9, "predicament": "Excited about going home for a visit, a newcomer calls off his family's plans to come to him, and is worn out by the routine." }, { "chunk": 498, "story": 10, "predicament": "Rattled by talk of danger in his new role, a man insists on a visit home, sure it may be his last." }, { "chunk": 739, "story": 17, "predicament": "A man sent home early is asked to be the public face of a fundraising drive, and agrees for the sake of home." } ], "options": [ { "text": "Keep your promise and go home.", "source": "scene:205", "moves": { "relationships.family": "+", "relationships.boss": "-" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Stay a little longer, since they say they need you.", "source": "scene:186", "moves": { "relationships.boss": "+", "relationships.family": "-" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Leave your post without permission.", "source": "scene:171", "moves": { "relationships.boss": "-", "money": "risk", "relationships.family": "+" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Ask your family what they want you to do.", "source": "filled", "moves": { "relationships.family": "+", "savvy": "+" }, "in_group": null } ] }, { "id": "G42", "name": "Relatives under one roof", "predicament": "You and relatives you resent are sharing a home, and each side thinks the other is living off it.", "sentence": "A householder or guest wants their fair share, or the relatives gone from resented relatives.", "actor": "householder or guest", "wants": "their fair share, or the relatives gone", "counterpart": "resented relatives", "stories": [ 2, 3, 4, 5 ], "story_titles": [ "The Busher’s Honeymoon", "A New Busher Breaks In", "The Busher’s Kid", "The Busher Beats It Hence" ], "standing": { "middle": 11 }, "stage": "middle", "members": [ { "chunk": 83, "story": 2, "predicament": "A drunk man threatens his sister-in-law, is struck by her husband, and afterwards tells the story as his own victory." }, { "chunk": 84, "story": 2, "predicament": "A man already short of money takes his in-laws into his home and hires help so everyone can live it up." }, { "chunk": 86, "story": 2, "predicament": "A man who cannot afford to bring his wife on a long trip insults her family and has nowhere to leave her." }, { "chunk": 96, "story": 2, "predicament": "A man in debt asks the relative he has been supporting for a loan and is refused, the relative saving for his own wife." }, { "chunk": 126, "story": 3, "predicament": "An estranged relative offers a handshake and urges reconciliation with a wife, and the man threatens lawyers instead." }, { "chunk": 140, "story": 3, "predicament": "A man finally repays his friend and reunites with his wife, then moves in rent-free with the in-laws he despises." }, { "chunk": 160, "story": 4, "predicament": "A relative who offered free lodging, worn down by a crying baby, demands the guest start paying his share." }, { "chunk": 161, "story": 4, "predicament": "A guest accused of sponging hurls the charge back, plans to leave, and cannot get his wife to move near his old friends." }, { "chunk": 180, "story": 4, "predicament": "Two sisters sharing a home fall out over noise and money, and one family is ordered out of the house." }, { "chunk": 197, "story": 5, "predicament": "A married man tempted by a grand trip half wishes he were single, and spitefully keeps a relative from the same chance." }, { "chunk": 199, "story": 5, "predicament": "A man learns his wife has reconciled with relatives he despises, and lies to keep one of them from an opportunity." } ], "options": [ { "text": "Accuse them of sponging first.", "source": "scene:161", "moves": { "relationships.inlaws": "-" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Move out, whatever it costs.", "source": "scene:179", "moves": { "money": "-", "relationships.inlaws": "-", "relationships.spouse": "+" }, "in_group": false }, { "text": "Keep them out of a chance you could share.", "source": "scene:199", "moves": { "relationships.inlaws": "-", "flags.spite": "set" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Take the hand they offer.", "source": "scene:126", "moves": { "relationships.inlaws": "+" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Pay your share and keep the peace.", "source": "filled", "moves": { "money": "-", "relationships.inlaws": "+", "relationships.spouse": "+" }, "in_group": null } ] }, { "id": "G43", "name": "Your spouse snubs people you owe", "predicament": "Your spouse looks down on old friends or humble companions who have been good to you, and you are caught between them.", "sentence": "A person between two loyalties wants to keep both from a snobbish spouse and humbler friends.", "actor": "person between two loyalties", "wants": "to keep both", "counterpart": "a snobbish spouse and humbler friends", "stories": [ 2, 10, 12 ], "story_titles": [ "The Busher’s Honeymoon", "Corporal Punishment", "And Many a Stormy Wind Shall Blow" ], "standing": { "middle": 2, "low": 3 }, "stage": "low", "members": [ { "chunk": 76, "story": 2, "predicament": "A man invites an old friend to visit while awkwardly letting it show that his wife does not want the friend's spouse along." }, { "chunk": 78, "story": 2, "predicament": "A man whose old friend's wife feels snubbed insists no slight was meant, though his own wife did not want them." }, { "chunk": 477, "story": 10, "predicament": "A husband tries to be friendly to a colleague's humble family, and his snobbish wife goes out of her way to snub them." }, { "chunk": 478, "story": 10, "predicament": "A man pities a colleague for his plain wife, then sees how much more care she showed than his own glamorous one." }, { "chunk": 560, "story": 12, "predicament": "Writing what he thinks is his last letter, a man admits his wife always snubbed his old friend, and asks that friend for a favour." } ], "options": [ { "text": "Side with your spouse.", "source": "scene:78", "moves": { "relationships.friend": "-", "relationships.spouse": "+" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Propose they all travel together anyway.", "source": "scene:477", "moves": { "relationships.spouse": "-", "relationships.friend": "+" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Look down on the humbler couple yourself.", "source": "scene:478", "moves": { "relationships.friend": "-", "standing": "+" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Make amends to them yourself.", "source": "filled", "moves": { "relationships.friend": "+", "money": "-" }, "in_group": null } ] }, { "id": "G44", "name": "A new parent sure they know best", "predicament": "You have a new child, you are sure you understand it better than anyone, and you are about to act on it.", "sentence": "A new parent wants to do right by the child from the other parent.", "actor": "new parent", "wants": "to do right by the child", "counterpart": "the other parent", "stories": [ 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 17 ], "story_titles": [ "A New Busher Breaks In", "The Busher’s Kid", "The Busher Beats It Hence", "The Busher’s Welcome Home", "Call for Mr. Keefe!", "Simple Simon" ], "standing": { "middle": 10, "low": 1 }, "stage": "middle", "members": [ { "chunk": 142, "story": 3, "predicament": "A struggling man becomes a father, is overjoyed at having a real family, and brushes aside the debts piling up." }, { "chunk": 143, "story": 3, "predicament": "A new father who scorns a certain kind of person learns his own child may turn out that way, and panics." }, { "chunk": 145, "story": 4, "predicament": "A new father insists the baby responds to him specially, and quarrels with the mother who says otherwise." }, { "chunk": 146, "story": 4, "predicament": "A new father reads every infant whim as proof he is right, while the mother refuses to take his fussing seriously." }, { "chunk": 147, "story": 4, "predicament": "A doting new father thinks he understands the baby better than the mother, and wants to rush through work to get home." }, { "chunk": 164, "story": 4, "predicament": "A well-meaning father left alone with his infant does exactly the wrong thing, and makes the crying worse." }, { "chunk": 165, "story": 4, "predicament": "An anxious father calls in expert after expert, is told the trouble is his own doing, and resents paying for it." }, { "chunk": 190, "story": 5, "predicament": "A father setting off on a trip he had refused insists on waking his baby to say goodbye, sure the child adores him." }, { "chunk": 394, "story": 7, "predicament": "A father returning after months away lies awake imagining how his baby will greet him." }, { "chunk": 440, "story": 8, "predicament": "On the eve of being sent away, a man says goodbye to his small son and consoles himself with how proud the boy will be." }, { "chunk": 725, "story": 17, "predicament": "A man far away learns from a relative he dislikes that he has a new child, and tries to direct things from afar." } ], "options": [ { "text": "Trust your own judgement over the other parent's.", "source": "scene:147", "moves": { "relationships.spouse": "-", "savvy": "-" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Call in an expert, and another.", "source": "scene:165", "moves": { "money": "-" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Direct everything from far away.", "source": "scene:725", "moves": { "relationships.spouse": "-" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Do as the other parent says.", "source": "filled", "moves": { "relationships.spouse": "+", "relationships.family": "+" }, "in_group": null } ] }, { "id": "G45", "name": "Sure they are smitten with you", "predicament": "Someone has been pleasant to you, and you are sure they are falling for you.", "sentence": "A person who thinks themselves admired wants to be adored from someone merely polite.", "actor": "person who thinks themselves admired", "wants": "to be adored", "counterpart": "someone merely polite", "stories": [ 6, 7, 11, 13, 14, 16, 17, 19, 21 ], "story_titles": [ "The Busher Abroad", "The Busher’s Welcome Home", "Purls Before Swine", "Private Valentine", "Stragety and Tragedy", "Sammy Boy", "Simple Simon", "The Battle of Texas", "The Courtship of T. Dorgan" ], "standing": { "middle": 12, "low": 10 }, "stage": "middle", "members": [ { "chunk": 270, "story": 6, "predicament": "A married man at a dance thinks of his old flame, and takes a woman's teasing about his clumsiness as a compliment." }, { "chunk": 305, "story": 6, "predicament": "A man meeting dignitaries boasts that women pester him, and the great man's wife politely walks away before he can explain." }, { "chunk": 374, "story": 7, "predicament": "A man flattered by staged tales of his luck and admiring looks from women reminds himself he is married now." }, { "chunk": 510, "story": 11, "predicament": "A married man convinces himself an anonymous admirer singled him out, and debates whether answering would be harmless kindness." }, { "chunk": 521, "story": 11, "predicament": "Flattered by a stranger who claims to know him, a married man cannot place her and cannot decide whether to end it." }, { "chunk": 587, "story": 13, "predicament": "A married man muscles in on a friend's interest in a young woman, sure she prefers him, and the friend mentions his wife aloud." }, { "chunk": 588, "story": 13, "predicament": "Told who he is, a pleasant stranger politely wonders whether she has heard of him, and he takes it as admiration." }, { "chunk": 589, "story": 13, "predicament": "Mistaking a stranger's politeness for affection, a married man nobly resolves to stay away before she gets hurt." }, { "chunk": 593, "story": 13, "predicament": "Bored and neglected by his family, a married man meets the pleasant stranger again and reads her small talk as flirtation." }, { "chunk": 633, "story": 14, "predicament": "A married man who has been flirting convinces himself the young woman is heartbroken over him, and resolves to stay away." }, { "chunk": 690, "story": 16, "predicament": "Flattered by an admirer's reply, a man decides his charm is irresistible, while insisting he will stay perfectly faithful." }, { "chunk": 707, "story": 16, "predicament": "A man convinces himself that fate has arranged a meeting he set up himself, and hopes the other person will not fall for him." }, { "chunk": 740, "story": 17, "predicament": "Leaving behind someone who cared for him, a married man imagines her heartbroken, and reminds himself of his duty at home." }, { "chunk": 783, "story": 19, "predicament": "A married man who says he means to keep his mind on the work cannot stop describing an attractive stranger who noticed him." }, { "chunk": 787, "story": 19, "predicament": "Beaten to an opportunity by a bolder rival, a man insists it was really meant for him and imagines the other person regrets it." }, { "chunk": 841, "story": 21, "predicament": "A lonely friend envies a man's comfortable life, and the man offers, half joking, to pass on his surplus admirers." }, { "chunk": 845, "story": 21, "predicament": "A married man shows off at an outing while his shy friend sits silent, and he mistakes politeness for infatuation." }, { "chunk": 846, "story": 21, "predicament": "Asked to speak up for his shy friend, a man hears the young woman's teasing reply as a confession of love for him." }, { "chunk": 851, "story": 21, "predicament": "A man convinced a young woman pines for him believes he is doing her a kindness by going away." }, { "chunk": 853, "story": 21, "predicament": "A shy friend asks a man to help him win someone, and the man is privately sure she prefers the man himself." }, { "chunk": 854, "story": 21, "predicament": "A man tells a friend he is playing matchmaker, while insisting the person in question really wants him." }, { "chunk": 862, "story": 21, "predicament": "A young woman's reply plainly invites a shy friend to speak up, but the man carrying messages reads it as about himself." } ], "options": [ { "text": "Nobly keep your distance, to spare them.", "source": "scene:589", "moves": { "relationships.admirer": "-", "flags.imagined_admirer": "set" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Show off for them.", "source": "scene:845", "moves": { "money": "-", "relationships.spouse": "-" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Muscle in ahead of a friend who is keen on them.", "source": "scene:587", "moves": { "relationships.friend": "-", "relationships.admirer": "risk" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Take it as ordinary politeness.", "source": "filled", "moves": { "savvy": "+" }, "in_group": null } ] }, { "id": "G46", "name": "Stringing along an admirer while you are not free", "predicament": "An admirer does not know you are married or promised, it is getting warmer, and every letter makes the truth harder to tell.", "sentence": "A person who is not free wants the attention without the reckoning from an admirer, and a spouse who does not know.", "actor": "person who is not free", "wants": "the attention without the reckoning", "counterpart": "an admirer, and a spouse who does not know", "stories": [ 1, 11, 13, 14, 16, 19 ], "story_titles": [ "The Busher Comes Back", "Purls Before Swine", "Private Valentine", "Stragety and Tragedy", "Sammy Boy", "The Battle of Texas" ], "standing": { "low": 22, "middle": 4 }, "stage": "low", "members": [ { "chunk": 44, "story": 1, "predicament": "A man sends money to a fiancée with a flimsy excuse while a former sweetheart writes pleading that she was wronged." }, { "chunk": 46, "story": 1, "predicament": "Someone who keeps an old sweetheart dangling while engaged is stung by a public report calling his success luck." }, { "chunk": 54, "story": 1, "predicament": "Someone who has just won the boss's full approval keeps an old flame on a string while his fiancée has gone quiet." }, { "chunk": 509, "story": 11, "predicament": "A married man finds a note from a lonely stranger tucked into a gift, begging whoever finds it to write back." }, { "chunk": 514, "story": 11, "predicament": "A married man answers a lonely stranger's letter while hiding his marriage, telling himself it is only kindness." }, { "chunk": 519, "story": 11, "predicament": "A married man's harmless correspondence with a stranger turns ardent, and he tells himself he must now confess the truth." }, { "chunk": 520, "story": 11, "predicament": "A stranger writes flattering, coy letters to a married man, hinting at a past meeting and asking whether they might meet." }, { "chunk": 523, "story": 11, "predicament": "Feeling neglected at home, a married man keeps up a stranger's attentions with vague hints instead of telling her the truth." }, { "chunk": 528, "story": 11, "predicament": "After a spoiled visit home, a man hears again from an admirer he never discouraged, and fears she will do something rash." }, { "chunk": 529, "story": 11, "predicament": "Someone decides silence will end an awkward entanglement, and turns to grumbling about a punishing day's work." }, { "chunk": 534, "story": 11, "predicament": "A married man tells an admirer where he is and jokingly suggests a meeting, while telling himself he wants it all to end." }, { "chunk": 536, "story": 11, "predicament": "Caught by his own flirtation, a married man agrees to meet an admirer, telling himself he will confess the truth in person." }, { "chunk": 594, "story": 13, "predicament": "A married man flirts with a young woman, lies about his education, and contrives to show off his clumsy work." }, { "chunk": 595, "story": 13, "predicament": "Encouraged by a young woman's apparent admiration, a married man promises to write her something personal." }, { "chunk": 597, "story": 13, "predicament": "A married man writes a sentimental note to a young woman, telling himself it is kinder than disappointing her." }, { "chunk": 598, "story": 13, "predicament": "Someone sends a young woman a romantic token and persuades himself it is really a tactful way of saying goodbye." }, { "chunk": 630, "story": 14, "predicament": "A married man arranges private lessons with a young woman who smiled at him, and fears she will fall for him." }, { "chunk": 640, "story": 14, "predicament": "Brooding over a wife who rarely writes, a man excuses in advance the flirtation he is about to pursue." }, { "chunk": 684, "story": 16, "predicament": "A married man writes a flirtatious note to a stranger, telling himself it is harmless fun that will never come to anything." }, { "chunk": 697, "story": 16, "predicament": "Feeling neglected by his wife, a man decides a harmless friendship elsewhere is his due, and writes to encourage it." }, { "chunk": 698, "story": 16, "predicament": "A man writes ever warmer notes to a stranger to keep his mind off colleagues he nearly followed to their deaths." }, { "chunk": 705, "story": 16, "predicament": "A man plans something he would rather his wife not hear about, and has already rehearsed why it would be fair." }, { "chunk": 790, "story": 19, "predicament": "A married man enjoys sparring with an admirer and tells himself a little distraction now is good for his work later." }, { "chunk": 793, "story": 19, "predicament": "A married man resents being told how to behave off duty, and justifies courting an admirer he took from an unattached rival." }, { "chunk": 794, "story": 19, "predicament": "Teased by someone above about a flirtation, a man privately gloats that it will follow him to the next stop." }, { "chunk": 799, "story": 19, "predicament": "Told plainly to drop a distraction, a married man hides it instead, then swears he cannot work under the person who objected." } ], "options": [ { "text": "Keep it going; it is only kindness.", "source": "scene:514", "moves": { "relationships.admirer": "+", "relationships.spouse": "risk", "flags.strung_along": "set" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Blame your spouse's neglect, and go ahead.", "source": "scene:640", "moves": { "relationships.spouse": "-", "flags.strung_along": "set" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Agree to meet, meaning to confess in person.", "source": "scene:536", "moves": { "relationships.spouse": "risk", "standing": "risk" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Stop writing without a word.", "source": "scene:529", "moves": { "relationships.admirer": "-" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Tell them at once that you are not free.", "source": "filled", "moves": { "relationships.admirer": "-", "relationships.spouse": "+" }, "in_group": null } ] }, { "id": "G47", "name": "Caught with an admirer", "predicament": "The admirer you have kept from your spouse, or the spouse you have kept from your admirer, is about to find out, in front of you.", "sentence": "A person caught out wants to get out of it whole from the admirer, the spouse, or whoever exposes them.", "actor": "person caught out", "wants": "to get out of it whole", "counterpart": "the admirer, the spouse, or whoever exposes them", "stories": [ 11, 14, 17, 19, 21 ], "story_titles": [ "Purls Before Swine", "Stragety and Tragedy", "Simple Simon", "The Battle of Texas", "The Courtship of T. Dorgan" ], "standing": { "low": 6, "middle": 3 }, "stage": "low", "members": [ { "chunk": 537, "story": 11, "predicament": "Arriving for a secret meeting, a man finds his admirer is not what he imagined and pretends to be someone else." }, { "chunk": 538, "story": 11, "predicament": "Just as a man denies who he is to an admirer, an acquaintance names him aloud and his wife arrives to surprise him." }, { "chunk": 539, "story": 11, "predicament": "Rescued from an awkward entanglement by his wife's arrival, a man blames the admirer for it and pockets the lesson for nothing." }, { "chunk": 642, "story": 14, "predicament": "Having skipped duty with an excuse, a married man is caught kissing a young woman by her father and pays his way out." }, { "chunk": 742, "story": 17, "predicament": "A man tries to slip a name from his time away into family life, and his wife sees straight through it." }, { "chunk": 743, "story": 17, "predicament": "Caught out by his wife, a man hastily offers a flattering alternative, and it becomes the settled choice." }, { "chunk": 800, "story": 19, "predicament": "Caught out in one lie after another by someone above, a man finds that person inviting himself along to the secret meeting." }, { "chunk": 801, "story": 19, "predicament": "Someone above quietly reveals to an admirer that a man is married, and the man claims he was just about to say so." }, { "chunk": 850, "story": 21, "predicament": "A married man flirts with a young woman beside him until he notices his wife watching, and stops." } ], "options": [ { "text": "Deny who you are.", "source": "scene:537", "moves": { "relationships.admirer": "-", "standing": "risk" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Claim you were just about to tell them.", "source": "scene:801", "moves": { "standing": "-" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Pay your way out.", "source": "scene:642", "moves": { "money": "-" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Offer your spouse a flattering story.", "source": "scene:743", "moves": { "relationships.spouse": "+", "savvy": "+" }, "in_group": true }, { "text": "Own it to your spouse.", "source": "filled", "moves": { "relationships.spouse": "risk", "standing": "+" }, "in_group": null } ] } ], "unassigned": [ 15, 23, 34, 37, 55, 58, 59, 60, 62, 65, 79, 87, 88, 101, 103, 105, 106, 114, 119, 123, 127, 130, 148, 152, 153, 158, 159, 163, 166, 167, 174, 175, 184, 187, 188, 191, 194, 195, 198, 200, 203, 204, 206, 211, 213, 214, 215, 216, 217, 218, 220, 221, 223, 224, 227, 229, 230, 232, 233, 235, 238, 239, 241, 243, 246, 248, 249, 251, 252, 253, 254, 255, 258, 259, 261, 262, 264, 267, 268, 272, 273, 274, 276, 281, 282, 283, 284, 285, 286, 287, 288, 292, 293, 294, 301, 302, 303, 304, 307, 308, 310, 311, 313, 314, 316, 318, 319, 320, 321, 322, 324, 328, 329, 331, 335, 336, 338, 341, 342, 343, 344, 348, 349, 352, 357, 358, 359, 363, 366, 368, 369, 370, 371, 372, 373, 379, 382, 387, 389, 395, 396, 397, 407, 408, 413, 418, 419, 421, 424, 428, 430, 432, 433, 435, 436, 439, 442, 447, 448, 457, 460, 469, 481, 482, 483, 484, 490, 491, 492, 508, 511, 513, 531, 532, 535, 541, 542, 543, 545, 548, 549, 550, 551, 552, 553, 554, 555, 571, 576, 577, 580, 581, 585, 586, 590, 609, 611, 612, 626, 628, 629, 634, 638, 639, 641, 643, 652, 656, 657, 659, 660, 661, 664, 665, 666, 671, 674, 681, 682, 687, 688, 696, 701, 702, 703, 704, 710, 718, 719, 726, 727, 728, 731, 732, 734, 735, 736, 737, 741, 748, 762, 765, 776, 779, 784, 786, 791, 807, 819, 822, 831, 840, 843, 844, 848, 855, 856, 857, 858, 868, 873, 896 ] }