Changing Scenes?

[Breakstone]

I was thinking of a deveous villain in my upcoming campaign, and the evil things he'd do to Prisoners of War.

Then it occured to me that the PC's, unless captured, would not be able to appreciate the beauty of the villain's vileness.

So I was then thinking: Maybe, during a session, I'd change scenes from where the PC's currently are to inside the villain's fortress. I'd have a quick scene of the villain smacking about a prisoner and asking about something or other, then I'd switch back to the characters.

Has anyone changed scenes like this before?

Any tips or ideas?

 

[Mark]

If you have them meet an escaped prisoner, it be can be described by the escapee without giving the players "psuedo scrying capabilities" and they can gain some secrets, possibly, as well.

In message board games, like the Darkness and Light game in my sig, I do use the scene changing techniquie as a way to give the players some background they would have to play through otherwise. In Real Time games, I find it better to use something like I suggest above. *shrug*

 

[I'm A Banana]

I wouldn't recommend it...as said, it's almost scrying when they can see what's going on behind the scenes. It makes the game definately more TV/Comic Book, and with that the world looses some of it's hard substance.

But there are ways...have them meet an escaped prisoner, have them hear tales by villagers or lackeys of this villain...

...heck, even have them captured by the villian. PC's can show remarkable enginuity in escaping captivity, as any town guard will tell you. ^_^

 

[Crothian]

I've done scene changes and had some fun with it. If your players are really into role playing, then they might enjoy playing the victims as they are neing tortured. You could write up little sheets of info each player knows that the villian is trying to get.

However, it does make it hard to figure out how the PCs know this. For groups who don't mind meta gaming, that won't be a problem. However, for good groups they should actually have their characters ignore this info.

I'd suggest doing the swtched scene for fun,, and then expanding it to allow the players to use thses characters to try to escape. If they are successful, the PCs can meet up with the sirvivers of the escape and learn all about what is going on.

 

[Wicht]

One small brainstorm...

Do the scene with the Players taking on the roll of the prisoners, torture them evilly and then provide an means to escape (though not too easy.)

But do not reveal to the players the identity of the people torturing them unless they escape. If they escape then have these escaped prisoners meet the regular PCs and then tell them who was doing the torturing. If they do not escape, leave it a mystery but leave also the bodies laying at opportune places around the dungeon (or whathaveyou) for the PCs to discover when they break in to there (and then it all clicks into place)

And to prevent Metagaming change some of the dungeon around if the prisoners die, so that if they want to use metagame knowledge it hurts them.

 

[Methinkus]

probably not a good idea unless you know your players can handle being given out of character knowledge without using it when you flash back to what they are doing.

Even if your players are good like that, I wouldn’t recommend it, but it depends on what you're into.

If your trying to tell a story with a lot of improv thrown in, then this can work very well.

If, however, you really want the players to fall into character and feel like a part of your world, then i wouldn’t start showing them anything that their characters wouldn’t know. They might start feeling like they were being given minor control over one character on a TV show or something and that attitude could lead to trouble

 

[LostSoul]

Hmmm... most people seem to be against the idea. Strange. I guess it comes from playing D&D instead of something more cinematic, like Star Wars.

I use "Cutscenes" all the time. They are great for giving the players bits of information that they couldn't have otherwise and move the story along. You don't want to give away valuable information - no secrets should be revealed. Use the cutscenes to create atmosphere and mood in the game.

I used a cutscenes where an evil wizard (face cloaked in shadow) along with the party's nemesis summoned an evil demon to hunt the wizard in the party. The players already knew they were being hunted down by an evil, magic-using cult, so nothing really changed.

 

[Umbran]

Such scenes are alright, but there may well be a way to handle it that doesn't take the players out of their own characters....

Have the PCs come across the effects of the vileness - an ex-prisoner, or a room used by the guy as an impropmtu torture chamber, or what have you. The PCs can see the remains of the villain's workings, or run into well-played NPCs who have seen the villain's actions personally.

 

[Mordax]

I've done stuff like this. Loved it.

If you really want to have an in game excuse for it, just give the players bad dreams that include a few details of the Evil Plot. Call it a divine nudge in the right direction.

 

[7thlvlDM]

Such scenes are alright, but there may well be a way to handle it that doesn't take the players out of their own characters....

Unlike most of the folks who've replied, I HIGHLY recommend this. Although not doing it makes certain the players play from their characters' points of view, switching to the bad guys is highly cinematic and entertaining. It's done in movies and books to great effect. Tell your players they should be mature enough to seperate player knowledge and character knowledge, because it'll be more fun for them if you can utilize this technique. Switching scenes like this also allows your players to understand what's going on and thus better able to enjoy the story, even if their characters will never have enough information to figure it out.

Besides, if they fail to keep from being influenced by what their characters are not suppose to know, trick them I recently ran a game where I started by reading an intro I said was from a different "perspective". The intro made it sound like the party's allies were actually the bad guys and the criminals they've been chasing were really good guys. Of course, the different perspective I was talking about came from an alternate reality which they would cross into half way through the session. When their "good" allies began showing signs of being cruel and greedy, they assumed it was because they'd always been that way. They only caught on to the parallel dimension switch at the very end. But anyways, I digress... If you can pull off dramatic scene switches, you level up as a DM

-7th