Character card / Control–Indirect Design · Controllers
“You are free to choose. I’ll decide which options you get.”
In everyday life, these tendencies value direction and initiative, map the positions of everyone involved, plan a path, and care whether the whole gains acceptance.
In shadow mode, coordination may become a set of constrained choices that feel autonomous but always lead to a preset result. Planning and organization are not in themselves manipulation.
Understanding multiple parties' needs and sequencing action can help coordinate complex work and address resistance early, provided participants know the key facts and can shape the plan rather than merely choose among preset options.
When participation is merely for show and every available path is quietly narrowed to your own decision, coordination has crossed others' boundaries of autonomy.
Like the Agitator, the Puppet Master gains control through people and circumstances, but cares more about making the arrangement look reasonable and acceptable. Like the Power Broker, the Puppet Master manages order; the Puppet Master tends to stop once the pieces are in place, while the Power Broker is more likely to punish challengers.
01 / UNDERSTAND THIS COMBINATION
Characters take a strategy to a vivid extreme. Understanding these combinations can help you notice proportion and limits in everyday choices.
This character cares more about controlling key decisions and may accept extra costs to retain that control.
This character tends to arrange information, relationships and options before guiding a situation in the desired direction.
Once the goal is reached and repairs are made, this character tends to end the conflict and turn to the next step.
This character tends to explain choices using reasons that others can also understand.
02 / SOMETHING TO NOTICE
Think of a collaboration or disagreement: what did you most want to protect, how did you move things forward and when were you ready to stop? Putting actions in context often reveals more than a name alone.
Extra / Character skills
Others think there are three independent choices, but in fact all three are under his control.