Mechanically defining a scene as a unit of play

#22

Part of my thinking is that I feel that this could be more immersive - by having a clear delineation between the metagame setting up the scene and the in-character play once it begins, the scene itself feels like it should be able to be less encumbered by the structures of the game.

My roleplaying origins are very much in LARP where you have the concepts of time in and time out, but you also end up having the intermediate time-ish state where you’re sort of in character but someone is sorting out something mechanical so you can’t get on and do what you actually want to do right now, or it’s technically after time-out but everyone wants to keep playing their characters and you end up kind of balanced on the IC/OC fence. A lot of tabletop games feel to me as though they happen in time-ish, which is fine - that is often a good time - but I am really interested by the idea that marking those boundaries could create a different atmosphere.

Definitely influenced by the way Dramasystem works as well - that does a great job of keeping the structures of the game out of scenes, but to put it in crude terms I tend to enjoy PvE rather than PvP types of game ( of course there is a lot of crossover anyway ) and so I’m interested in taking some of that dynamic and experimenting with moving it into a more traditional adventure-story type environment.

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#23

This is interesting too ( following up on both your and @beepeegee’s observations ) I wonder whether there might be a larger structure at play about the position in the narrative, too, perhaps the roll I’m thinking of here is less useful than a degree of narrative control that perhaps varies based on the fictional positioning, behaving somewhere between the position in Blades and momentum in Ironsworn - while you have control of the situation you start with more flexibility, but as things run badly within the scene a possible failure cost would be losing control of the situation so the next scene begins worse.

If anything the problem I’m having here is that there are a lot of super-interesting ideas flying round and it’s going to be very tricky to figure out what will work best. I’m stomping through the other components of the game in the hope of getting some kind of rickety but playable framework together to test it out.

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#24

Not entirely related but I love the idea of mechanics for advantage debt. IE you demand an advantage now that gives yourself or others a negative currency which will hurt you later.

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#25

How do you find that stuff like this effects immersion?

These sorts of mechanics usually do pull players out of the immersion. I am hoping to reduce this in my game Leadtown with a mechanic where the player with the largest bet for a hand declares what their character’s motivation in the scene. Then, players in the scene also get a little bonus in scenes when they use another character’s nickname in a scene.

I am hoping this structure and incentives transition the players unconsciously from the meta-game back into character immersion.

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#26

On tokens vs roll : tokens are unforgiving levers of all or nothing. The gamefeel is very much Mastermind. Rolls are easily disclaimed as random. They feel more in sync with the flow of action, with only a second or two of wonder.
For preparedness, tokens. For the upper hand rolls.

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#27

I think that is part of what I like about rolls, also that moment of suspension, of potential at the table when the dice are in motion. What happens if it goes wrong? To me that uncertainty is fun and definitely something I want to keep in the game, also it reflects the unpredictable flow of life, I think when characters are working more collaboratively than in opposition to one another it provides a source of drama and failure, taking a little weight off the GM in that regard.

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#28

I think it’s important to be clear if you wish to have uncertainty (dice roll) from player perspective (i.e. narrative authority) or from player character perspective (i.e. character “success” or outcome).

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#29

This is a really interesting question, I think that it is character outcome that interests me more, so the goal is to favour that, but I hadn’t framed it in those terms so it helps me clarify what I’m aiming at.

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#31

Fascinating topic!

Would it help or hinder to have different moves for different types of scenes? Either based on the character’s goals (“When you try to make someone do what you want”) or the type of action in the scene (“When you’re in a car chase”).

My thinking is that this could help make the stakes more clear and perhaps genre specific, especially if you have PbtA-style picklists.

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#32

My game Leadtown does that in a very limited way. Basically, a character gets 2 moves to start. One strong and one weak and they really give color and do exactly what you suggest.

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#33

This is something I have been thinking about in terms of some types of scenes being almost like their own mini game, somewhere on the line between Firebrands games and the way duels happen in Burning Wheel. Fundamentally it’s something I like, but I need to get this core scene format down first and figure out the default configuration…

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#34

Would you want this to be a roll before every scene?

If this was a roll reserved for more climactic scenes it could be something along the lines of how many unknown threats/elements/opportunities are available for the players to take advantage of. Perhaps this is a roll that accumulates through play?

Say for instance your characters are preparing for a heist. In previous scenes players may have been casing an area for later. If they failed in that roll you might make note to add dice to the “Establishing” roll later on.

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#36

I was thinking of before every scene because I want a scene to have a very clear boundary and transition, a marker between time-in and time-out that is unambiguous for the whole table. This thread has really helped me to clarify that what I’m really interested in, at the simplest level, is having something that shows us what the risks are during the scene. It could almost be as simple as “on a success you have an extra resource you can call on, on a failure the character you are petitioning/confronting/the environment has an extra resource it can call on” kind of balance. This could also offer fun guidance as GM - this seems like a relatively simple scene ( often if a scene has low stakes it might not be worth playing out ) but with the players failing their opening roll, we now know there is some looming threat that will come into play during the scene.

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