Why four?
When I got done designing The Four table - I was pretty happy - I felt like it was clever. Four suits, four functions, stats, threats, worlds, and power sources. But something was nagging at me - like it was something I'd heard before. So I went looking for some scientific backing for my design. I guess I was looking for an authority to help me back it up.
Turns out I tapped into the collective unconscious
Carl Jung calls this four-sided shape the quaternity. It's an archetype of wholeness and completeness. It's why things like the four cardinal directions, four elements, and the four psychological functions themselves just feel complete.
The four functions
Jung thought that there are four main psychological functions. They're how a person experiences the world. It was cool seeing how well they lined up against my axes, my functions.
| suit | my function | Jung's function |
|---|---|---|
| ♠ | PRESSURE — threat, time, force | Intuition — what's coming |
| ♥ | PEOPLE — bonds, need, feeling | Feeling — what it's worth |
| ♦ | THINGS — resources, tools, treasure | Sensation — what's here |
| ♣ | PLACE — terrain, structure, the world's own logic | Thinking — how it holds together |
I didn't try to come up with that off the bat - I started off trying to figure out how to use cards for solo roleplaying because I thought a card-based oracle would be cool and would solve some problems that I had. I played it, made some tweaks, played again, and when I was satisfied, it already had the quaternity shape, and I didn't even think about that - it just happened.
The cross
The functions come in opposite pairs. Thinking vs Feeling, the two that judge. Sensation vs Intuition, the two that perceive.
For the suits that is ♣ against ♥, and ♦ against ♠ - black against red.
The same opposition is on the threat column. Once again, I didn't plan on it, it just sort of emerged: ♠ Hunter advances vs ♦ Hoarder which withholds. ♥ Binder presses a claim vs ♣ Warden which bars the way. Every opposed pair is a threat that comes at you and one that turns away from you.
The 1 is where the most surprise comes from
You assign 3, 2, 2, and 1 cards over your stats. Most people think of the stat with 1 card as the weak spot and probably avoid using that stat if they can get away with it.
Jung's terms for this (and I didn't know until I went down this rabbit hole) are superior, auxiliary, auxiliary, and inferior. The inferior function is not the one you're bad at, it's the one where you don't act: you get acted on. It's the one where things happen to you.
What that means while playing is that if you use that stat for something, you can only flip one card and you have to keep it. No real choice, it's just what happened to you. Weird how this all sort of aligned.
Threats are complex constellations
A complex is a function gone rogue - a cluster of thoughts, memories and feelings that has split off and is running by itself, with its own intentions. When something sets one off, Jung says it constellates: it assembles, and it turns up.
This was a wild realization - the row of spades you set aside is that complex assembling itself out of trouble you have actually been in, and the pressure die is the count of how much of it there is. When it lands, that's the constellation: it shows up. And it's made of the character's own history.
In conclusion
I didn't set about to have this game design match up with or be inspired by Jung at all, and maybe I'm retconning, but the unlooked-for parallels in it really struck me.
If you got this far, thanks for nerding out with me!