Scene Framing

[John Anderson]

Hi all,
First of all, a very merry (belated) Chrimbo, and a Happy New Year to all.

Secondly, let me get this off my chest. I am a bad GM. No, really. I've been going back over my BW AP recordings, and I've noticed that...

1: I don't really frame scenes very well at all.
2: Scenes are long, meandering affairs with no real focus.

Now, I know the two are inter-related and off the back of re-reading PTA and reading this thread (http://www.story-games.com/forums/comments.php?DiscussionID=6377&page=1#Item_0) I've been having a good think about how to effectively scene-frame within Burning Wheel and other Story Games.

The thread linked to above focuses on the usual BW themes of hitting BITs, but also discusses the role of GM and player roles in scene framing. In my opinion, there is a shared responsibility between both GM and players to push for the scenes that players and GMs want as BW (amongst many story games) is one of those games where players have to be proactive in order for the game to zing.

From the players perspective their Beliefs provide a goal for the player to strive towards while the GM has an overarching story arc as a motivator for action. While Instincts and traits can provide motivation for scenes, I would argue that they are secondary to beliefs as beliefs are the player's priorities for action.

The GM needs to push forward the story while the players priority encompasses both driving forward the story as well as developing the character. With that in mind (and reading MouseGuard), I'd like to throw the following out there as a way of seeing how others go about framing their scenes and/or whether I am talking a big pile of doggy doo.

Beliefs
1: An Overarching Belief which tells the audience and guides the player toward how the character will behave in reaction to a certain circumstance and decision point.
2: A Personal Goal that is a player priority for something he wishes the character to achieve. It can be a short term or long-term goal, but it must be achievable.
3: A Plot Goal that ties the character into the situation at hand. It must be intimately associated with the overarching plot or arc of the game and must be achievable.

Scene Framing
1: The player decides if he wants a Personal or a Plot scene which will serve to advance the goal of either the player or the group as a whole. The scene must tie into one of the character’s beliefs.
1A: Should no player have a scene in mind, then the GM steps up with a plot scene that will hit both the story development and hit one or more of the character's beliefs.
2: In PTA parlance, a scene will either provide insight into the character or provide information that will move the story along.
3: The Focus of the scene will be either to develop the character or advance the plot.
4: The Agenda tells everyone what the player would like to see happen in the scene. Not the nuts and bolts of each action, rather the player’s intent for that scene and the likely conflict which may occur.
5: The Location is simply that. Where does the scene take place and who is present.
6: The GM will then take this information and frame the scene for that player. Once framed, the scene is handed over to the player to resolve.

John

[BobSlaughter]

Looking over this now. So far, so good. I, too, am a weak GM, but love my role-playing to be more storytelling than rule-running.

Link or other explanation for "PTA"?

[Daniel H.]

Link or other explanation for "PTA"?
Primetime Adventures (http://www.dog-eared-designs.com/games.html). I've never played it, but it's a well-respected game. It has some serious scene-framing structure.

[DanielJDavis]

2: Scenes are long, meandering affairs with no real focus.

Something I find that helps me is to always reverse engineer my scenes. That is, the primary thing I look for is this: what's the conflict?

Really, everything else is secondary; it's setup for the conflict and resolution of the conflict. So this is what I make myself do (and what I'd suggest to your group).

1) Determine the conflict. What's at stake, who wants what, and why are we even rolling dice?
2) Determine setup: who's there, where's there?
3) Play the conflict. You can narrate the setup, but that's not the point of the scene. Keeping this in mind can prevent some of the scene-meander you mentioned.
4) Since the resolution isn't known beforehand, you obviously can't plan how things will turn out (though you probably have some idea of the possibilities because of the negotiated stakes of the conflict). But once the conflict's done, the appropriate person(s) narrate the resolution.
5) Done. Choose the next conflict and form a scene around it.

PTA is a great game, by the way and well worth a purchase (after you've bought all Luke's books, of course).

Like I said, this formula works for me; YMMV.

[luke]

Hi John,

Scene framing in RPGs SUCKS.

There are no explicit scene framing rules in Burning Wheel.

Burning Empires is, in part, an attempt to address the lack of narrative scene structure. BE is all about scene framing! Hard to have a meaningless or meandering scene when you play that game.

Mouse Guard is, in part, an attempt to use the BE scene structure as a basis for a more traditional fantasy roleplaying game dynamic. Mouse Guard has a loose turn structure, but a rigorous scene structure hidden in the Obstacle and checks system.

Anyway, I've found that itemizing scenes and placing YOU MUST DO X restrictions on them hurts the game.

Far better, I've found, to say: This is where you are; this is the problem; what do you do?

This is where you are: Setting is very important in roleplaying games. We need imaginative building blocks to better grasp the potential action. It's the GM's job to lay this out for the player. Take a minute and just describe shit.

This is what the problem is: Be aggressive. Tell the player that shit is happening. Describe it. Then describe what kind of tests are possible. Offer the player a chance to suggest some solutions.

What do you do about it?: This is where the player gets to demonstrate his priorities. How does he handle the situation? What actions does he take? Let him have the reins. Enjoy the roleplaying! Resolve the situation with the appropriate rolls.

THEN look at this Belief. Ask him about that Belief you were challenging. Why did he play it that way? Was he consciously betraying it? Was he actively playing into it? It's a fun conversation, often with surprises for both player and GM.

Occasionally, I'll throw a situation at a player to directly target a Belief and the player will clearly forget that he has that Belief. I'll stop and ask, "Aren't you going to play that Belief?" Sometimes the reminder helps. Sometimes I just get a shrug.

Let the player decide how he wants his character concept, his Belief and his decisions to interact.

And after you've rolled those dice. After the Belief has been brought into question or validated. END THE FUCKING SCENE. CUT. MOVE ON. GO TO ANOTHER PLAYER. OR START THE PROCESS AGAIN with NEW information based on the last set of outcomes: SETTING, PROBLEM, ACTION.

Content wise, use the people, places and objects described in a player's Beliefs. Use them in the setting, make them part of the problem. Put them in danger, give them their own agenda (counter to the player's). Don't do anything complicated or fancy. If a player has a brother relationship and a Belief about always telling the truth, have the brother steal something. Then have the cops or the dad show up. (Those two combine to make the PROBLEM). Does the player cover for his brother? (That's the QUESTION.)

Then, based on the answer to that question (there are many, many permutations), set up the next problem.

Hope that helps.
-L

[Aramis]

In general, if you think of RPG encounters as scenes of a show (TV/Movie/Play/Musical), you've already set yourself up to fail.

The best playing games I've used have all had a "Here's the problem" and "If you overcome the problem, do this, if not, do this other instead" type adventures.

DESCRIBE THE SITUATION: give the players the tools to see it. Describe the specific obstacle. Then, get the * out of their way, and let them overcome the situation.
Once they overcome it, give up on it, or hit the point of no possible success, move the * on.

This is nothing new in gaming; it is the approach used implicitly in Tunnels and Trolls, and explicitly by DGP for MegaTraveller (Cinematic Nugget Format). Mouse Guard does the same. Narrate a problem, turn the players loose, and once they solve it, move on.

[Fuseboy]

I'm really digging this thread. In several games now, I've really wanted to hit that kind of 'only the important scenes' feel, but we haven't quite managed it. Thinking back to the Gdinsk game, I regret that travel to and from the game's important locations was as hard as I made it, I think that really saps momentum.


In general, if you think of RPG encounters as scenes of a show (TV/Movie/Play/Musical), you've already set yourself up to fail.

How so? I confess I've been thinking of TV-like scenes as something to aspire to.

[Aramis]

Because, quite simply, RPG is far too flexible for the obvious nature of flow from scene to scene that occurs in the scripted, tightly-timed, 3 and 5 act models of stage and screen.

When you present a situation to resolve, it could take the players 30 seconds, or 30 minutes, depending upon the players. The encounter sunday night that I thought would be short (drain the beaver dam, Ob4 carpentry); instead they chose to negotiatiate, and used Loremouse to open said negotiations, and wanted to use the conflict for the negotiations. (They asked, I agreed; it nearly backfired upon them.)

Further, in TV/Movies/Plays, the outcome is predetermined; you only need frame the actual story. In RPG's, each scene should be able to lead to at least two outcomes, if not more. In TV, each scene can have more than one thing to be overcome; RPG, you need to not overwhelm the players, so you need to keep each encounter short.

Further still: each obstacle can be several scenes. Remember the beavers mentioned above? The obstacle counts 3-5 scenes...
1) Arrival and evaluation of the dam
2) Talking with the beavers
3) getting the agreed upon assistance from lockhaven
4) getting the work done at the damn
5) talking with the beavers after the fact.

1-2 could have been a single scene, as might 4-5, save for the fact that not all PC's made the leap to scene 2, nor to scene 5.

The obstacle is spread over 5 scenes, 4 tasks (Loremouse to talk, Argument conflict, Persuasion to get the help mandated in the compromise, and Carpentry to do the actual work); it could have been handled with a single task (to drain it before the beavers could get them), and might then have been one scene or two.

[Fuseboy]

Ah, I see what you're saying. Thanks.

[Sam W]

Great thread! Ending the scene has always been my problem, now that I think about it.

[John Anderson]

Hi all,

I've been trying to post coherent responses to all of these, however my head seems to be filled with cotton wool today for some reason (nothing to do with drinking and dancing till stupid-o'clock, I'm sure).

I've deleted and modified this post so many times I'm seeing double. I will return in a day or so when my life is not quite so queezy.

Happy New Year by the way.

John

[John Anderson]

See, now I'm double posting.
Sheesh.
John

[Paul B]

I think I'm really good at framing "scenes" or set pieces in RPGs, but it's definitely taken a long time to figure it out (and probably a decade of failure in the beginning). Lemme see if I can figure out how I do that when I'm GMing BW...

* If it's the first scene of the night, I always start with a recap of the last session to make sure we're all on the same page. The other players will help fill in the blanks.

* Once we're done with the recap I'll go to the players first: "So is there anything you want to get the jump on first?" I let them tell me, esp. if we've just done a Belief rewrite workshop and they're chomping at the bit to start chasing it.

* If nobody has an immediate, driving desire to do something I make a note of that so we can rewrite Beliefs next time for more right now urgency. Then I look at Beliefs that are on the table and brainstorm a bit. In a perfect world, I've had time to review everyone's Beliefs prior to the session and have done a little brainstorming: how do I challenge this Belief? Are there opposing Beliefs between characters? They really are great places to go for hooks.

* Okay, so I start with thinking about the most interesting and urgent conflict at the table. Then I describe the situation and some setting details. I think that's the baseline for all my scenes: situation + setting. I introduce a little mood to my description of both the situation and the setting, because I think it really helps the players think through how they approach the scene.

* Then I ask what each character present is doing in the situation/setting. "Um nothing" is never an acceptable answer, but my players understand that. We have a very high level of trust that when I present a scene, it's going to be A Big Deal. But sometimes there's a little brain-freeze with the players. I try and figure out why the brain freeze is happening (too many options, not clear what's going on, stage fright, not sure how to engage with the rules to do something) and help them through it any way I can. I feel the most important job I have as GM is to help players reach into the fiction with both hands and get dirty.

* When I break it down, I think in a 3-4 hour session of play I might present 5 or 6 scenes total.

* Typically a scene will end in an obvious way: the main conflict has been resolved, the other party leaves or dies, etc. Or a new scene will start because the situation that led to the previous scene has radically changed! So in that case, the setting might not be different but the situation now is. I think that must mean that, in my own head, the situation is the core of any scene since the setting might remain. Although it's a powerful marker to change the setting as well.

* I feel like Say Yes or Roll the Dice is a very potent way of thinking about scene framing. If the dice are out, that means you want to introduce uncertainty and tension. The scene's job is to describe and escalate the tension, and then release it one way or another.

Anyway, some random thoughts. I've never really thought through my own procedures very much.

p.

[John Anderson]

Hi all, and thanks for the great responses.

I think looking back over my original post that something got lost in that post. I'll try again based on some assumptions on my part...

1: I can and do frame scenes which hit players beliefs, although badly, leading to 'long and meandering' affairs where the focus can be a bit lost. My scene framing technique is, I think, unfocused and unstructured.

2: I get the whole hit 'em round the head with conflicts that challenge beliefs such that there is no easy, predetermined solution and as such, those beliefs are held up to scrutiny and possible change.

3: BW has no inherent codified scene-framing or scene-economy mechanism and the game is structurally GM-centric in that all scenes are established by the GM in order to directly challenge player's beliefs.

4: However, there is a feedback loop built directly into the BW system in that players implicitly state their characters "believe this" and/or "will do this" which the GM alone frames scenes designed to directly challenge. The old "Oh, you believe that? What about now?" moment of play. Such tension forces a reevaluation and reconstitution of those player priorities which the GM again directly challenges and this continues ad infinitum...

5: BW is a game which is firmly based around an in-game structure, setting and situation which have been collaboratively constructed. Yet, once the setting and situation have been established, players have no authority to frame scenes, that is the purview of the GM.

My original post was my attempt to see whether I could tie in all of the above five points so that players could help me better frame scenes by reducing the work I have to do 'on the fly' as well as whether it was possible to utilize the scene-framing mechanics of PTA to help both myself and players. I want the players to help me by setting the rough outline of a scene they'd like to have which allows me, as GM, to focus on getting that scene crack on rather than having to come up with a scene on the fly and frame it coherently. In effect I want the players to be able to help me focus on what's important in a scene for that player.

I'm certainly not advocating a structural change to BW, such as the delineated scene structure and economy of BE and MG, rather I'm trying to see whether some general guidelines would make my life easier.

I can kick things off and I can keep banging away at players' beliefs (badly, but that is a practice thing) and then we hit the "What are you going to do now?" moment when the game hits that natural pause at the end of a series of scenes. Already players have the ability to affect the scenes which will occur with this one question, and hence where my original (badly framed) question comes in.

By turning the game over to the players, who have already implicitly stated what their PCs beliefs are, and offering them a loose structure by which to quickly focus what they want to do I'd like to get the players to provide the core elements of a new scene which the GM will then frame. There is no alteration to the BW core structure of the GM as having sole right to frame scenes, rather the players are taking their three beliefs and saying, "right now? this is the most important thing for my character. I want to do this..."

By loose structure, I want to go back to the PTA method which I mentioned in the first post. I shouldn't have been so implicit in using PTA in that some seem to think I want to have a TV/movie style of play. I don't. I just think PTA enunciates the key elements of a scene well and I think it would be useful (for me anyway) in laying out what is required in a scene.

Scene Framing
1: The player decides if he wants a Personal or a Plot scene which will serve to advance the goal of either the player or the group as a whole. The scene must tie into one of the character’s beliefs.

The player decides she'd like to hit her personal belief which revolves around her hated husband rather than her belief which is tied to the situation, the location of two assassins who killed the wise man.

2: In PTA parlance, a scene will either provide insight into the character or provide information that will move the story along.

3: The Agenda tells everyone what the player would like to see happen in the scene. Not the nuts and bolts of each action, rather the player’s intent for that scene and the likely conflict which may occur. This is the crux of the scene and is laid out by the player rather than the GM.

The player states, "My belief is that I will ruin my husband's reputation. I want to start doing that by spreading false rumours"

5: The Location is simply that. Where does the scene take place and who is present.

The player continues by saying that she'd like it to happen in the centre of the city where there are big crowds to influence and that none of the other player characters are present.

6: The GM will then take this information and frame the scene for that player. Once framed, the scene is treated just as normal and the crux of the scene should result in a conflict which directly challenges the beliefs of that player.

The GM now knows which belief is really important to that that player at that moment and goes on to frame the scene based on the information provided.

The next day dawns as you head to the market square which is crowded as usual with market stalls, hawkers, shoppers and the like. You stand atop a small box shouting the ill deeds of your husband to all and sundry and a small crowd begins to gather. From across the square, a shout goes up and your husband bellows his rage at you...

So, after a rather long post. I'd like to use the players to provide me with the bare bones of a scene they'd like to have which I can use to build upon and hopefully improve how I go about framing scenes.

Make sense?

John

[Aramis]

not really, John. You're relying upon (1) a set of labels that most are not familiar with and (2) fixating on narrative control issues.

Don't think "Scenes"... think situations.

Identify the situation, not as a scene, but as a situation. Frame a situation, and let it resolve as the players work it.

Let the player's actions drive new scenes. BE, for example, is not about controlling scenes (tho' that is the language luke used) but about limiting the GM's framing of the overall conflict, and enhancing the player's ability to drive the overall story. As a GM in BE, I'm NOT in charge. I don't write the story. I don't even frame the scenes most of the time. I moderate the process and set the difficulties, and play the supporting cast and the villains, and that last solely because none of the players stepped up to do so.

You can let players frame scenes and conflicts in any RPG. If you don't, it can be quite frustrating. Scenes should flow from the conflict at hand.

A fixation on "Framing Scenes" is not itself helpful; it's the big McGuffin of RPGs... because scenes are irrelevant. Situations, conflicts and rolls are the mechanisms of story movement, of relevance.

[John Anderson]

Fair points, looking back I think I may be over complicating things. I would still like to get more player input into what players want to do next and I'm still toying with the idea of using that structure to build upon with framing scenes (or situations). However you phrase it though, I still need practice. Matt and John? When can we crack on with our game?
John