D&D 4E Pemertonian Scene Framing and 4e DMing Restarted

[S'mon]

I bet Zon-Kuthon knows how to extract Kazovon's chocolate from Ileosa's peanut butter. /snicker

I can't tell if that's obscene, racial, comedic, confectional, or all four.

 

[pemerton]

As I think I posted upthread (and have certainly posted before on other threads), I started my game by telling the players that each PC must (i) have some loyalty to someone/something, and (ii) be ready to fight goblins.

The reason for (i) was to have the players give me the hooks that you get in other games via Beliefs, Relationships etc.

The reason for (ii) was because I wanted to use Night's Dark Terror, and one of its early scenes is defending a stockade from goblins. This is a bit like [MENTION=82106]AbdulAlhazred[/MENTION]'s example of the GM saying "I've got a snake cult AP I want to run, let's work out how we're going to set it up."

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

I have to say that this advice matches my experience well; giving players a couple guidelines to build around generally helps with being able to set the scenes around them, and lends them a sense of party cohesion that you don't get when they just build in a vacuum.

Two recent examples from my experience:

My last (non-current) game was based around a viking-type culture and I'd requested everyone build something appropriate. I gave them a rundown on the culture, the area, brief history, etc. They all really jumped on that, to my surprise. I also arranged a simple (norse-type) rune reading for each of their characters. I drew each character 3 runes; the first was a strength (bonus to a stat), the second was a gift (bonus to a skill), the third was their wyrd or fate (granted ability, roughly feat equivalent or minor class feature). The results were pretty good, though if I had to do it over again, I would probably tone down the potency of the boons.

My second example comes from being a player in my wife's game. A while back, she had us all create characters with common background. We all had to (1) hail from the same small town, (2) be friends with a particular NPC, and (3) be young, between the ages of 14 and 18. Everyone built a really interesting and flavourful character, and they all bonded really, really well. That game has been one of our group's best for roleplaying and immersion. Part of it came from the fact that we really had to think about why and how our characters came to be adventurers at such ripe young ages, and what circumstances surrounded their path to those abilities.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I have to say that this advice matches my experience well; giving players a couple guidelines to build around generally helps with being able to set the scenes around them, and lends them a sense of party cohesion that you don't get when they just build in a vacuum.

Two recent examples from my experience:

My last (non-current) game was based around a viking-type culture and I'd requested everyone build something appropriate. I gave them a rundown on the culture, the area, brief history, etc. They all really jumped on that, to my surprise. I also arranged a simple (norse-type) rune reading for each of their characters. I drew each character 3 runes; the first was a strength (bonus to a stat), the second was a gift (bonus to a skill), the third was their wyrd or fate (granted ability, roughly feat equivalent or minor class feature). The results were pretty good, though if I had to do it over again, I would probably tone down the potency of the boons.

My second example comes from being a player in my wife's game. A while back, she had us all create characters with common background. We all had to (1) hail from the same small town, (2) be friends with a particular NPC, and (3) be young, between the ages of 14 and 18. Everyone built a really interesting and flavourful character, and they all bonded really, really well. That game has been one of our group's best for roleplaying and immersion. Part of it came from the fact that we really had to think about why and how our characters came to be adventurers at such ripe young ages, and what circumstances surrounded their path to those abilities.

It is a lot fuzzier in our games. Some way or other we'll get it into our heads to start a D&D campaign (or whatever game). We might not start with the system in mind, but a theme, etc. At least a couple of us will talk about it or shoot each other some ideas, then we'll settle on the mechanical details and build characters. Since everyone knows going in what the story's basic starting concept is (IE the last 4e one I started is "pirates" and we agreed the PCs are the sons of a missing trader who presumably has been captured by pirates). Not every player is always in on the start, and sometimes someone won't bother to/get a chance to make up an in-depth background, but in that case they can fill in as we get started. In my other 4e game I run the PCs are 8th level and a couple of them still have somewhat sketchy backgrounds with some big pieces not totally nailed down. The Paladin of Jerok is from a noble family, but we're not 100% sure where exactly her home is, it never came up.

 

[Kurtomatic]

I have another question if y'all don't mind.

There was a little discussion up thread about downtime.

Now I get that in a true no-myth game (as I understand it), there is basically no such thing as downtime; it's all uptime, regardless if the action is "back in town" or not. If it's activity that's not particularly action-y, it can just be handwaved. If it is dramatic, it becomes the next scene, ipso facto.

However, in a hybrid or light scene-framing game, is there room for a distinct notion of downtime, outside of full-on adventure mode? In the traditional notion of a D&D sandbox, downtime is not just about gear or simple money; it can include training, building holdings, recruiting allies, negotiating deals, etc. In that context, it seems to me that robust downtime is a strong instrument for character advocacy, that can in turn inform scene-framing. If my players spend a lot of time at the table improving the defenses of their fortified manor house, we all know what's going to happen next (or soon, or when it's most dramatically inconvenient), right?

Fantasy Craft, for example, is an interesting contrast to the narrative-focused methods discussed here. It also pulls way back on the simulation by abstracting away a lot of detail and process, and it has a focus on the idea of scene (combat resources tend to be per-encounter, action dice, etc). FC offers a lot of tools for character advocacy in my opinion, including robust downtime rules. However, it is more gamist in this respect than may be desired in the context of this thread. It doesn't have the same narrative sensibilities as BW or FATE. Still, I think narrative scene-framing could be very complimentary tool in a Fantasy Craft campaign.

 

[Campbell]

I have another question if y'all don't mind.

There was a little discussion up thread about downtime.

Now I get that in a true no-myth game (as I understand it), there is basically no such thing as downtime; it's all uptime, regardless if the action is "back in town" or not. If it's activity that's not particularly action-y, it can just be handwaved. If it is dramatic, it becomes the next scene, ipso facto.

However, in a hybrid or light scene-framing game, is there room for a distinct notion of downtime, outside of full-on adventure mode? In the traditional notion of a D&D sandbox, downtime is not just about gear or simple money; it can include training, building holdings, recruiting allies, negotiating deals, etc. In that context, it seems to me that robust downtime is a strong instrument for character advocacy, that can in turn inform scene-framing. If my players spend a lot of time at the table improving the defenses of their fortified manor house, we all know what's going to happen next (or soon, or when it's most dramatically inconvenient), right?

Fantasy Craft, for example, is an interesting contrast to the narrative-focused methods discussed here. It also pulls way back on the simulation by abstracting away a lot of detail and process, and it has a focus on the idea of scene (combat resources tend to be per-encounter, action dice, etc). FC offers a lot of tools for character advocacy in my opinion, including robust downtime rules. However, it is more gamist in this respect than may be desired in the context of this thread. It doesn't have the same narrative sensibilities as BW or FATE. Still, I think narrative scene-framing could be very complimentary tool in a Fantasy Craft campaign.

I try to let downtime occupy the same place that montages do in movies. I take a very high level view of it. Generally, I'll have players give me a general view of what they've been doing in between episodes. This helps me to create color and establish the PCs' relationship to the setting without spending too much time on it. While I haven't gotten into a significant period of downtime in the MRQ/Legend game I'm currently running one of the things I'm considering is allowing players to use a hero point to declare something advantageous that happened during downtime.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I can't tell if that's obscene, racial, comedic, confectional, or all four.

He...he's speaking in metaphors! Which means, Darmok is..

 

[pemerton]

I get that in a true no-myth game (as I understand it), there is basically no such thing as downtime; it's all uptime, regardless if the action is "back in town" or not. If it's activity that's not particularly action-y, it can just be handwaved. If it is dramatic, it becomes the next scene, ipso facto.

However, in a hybrid or light scene-framing game, is there room for a distinct notion of downtime, outside of full-on adventure mode? In the traditional notion of a D&D sandbox, downtime is not just about gear or simple money; it can include training, building holdings, recruiting allies, negotiating deals, etc. In that context, it seems to me that robust downtime is a strong instrument for character advocacy, that can in turn inform scene-framing.

I try to let downtime occupy the same place that montages do in movies. I take a very high level view of it. Generally, I'll have players give me a general view of what they've been doing in between episodes. This helps me to create color and establish the PCs' relationship to the setting without spending too much time on it.

This is similar to how I tend to handle downtime, too. In 4e, at least, the only activity that mechanically soaks up downtime is learning rituals - there are no long term healing rules, income earning rules, training rules etc. (This is a noticeable difference from Burning Wheel, for instance, or Runequest.)

So I have the players tell me what they're doing, mark off any expenditure/update inventories (eg if they're buying gear), make any relevant notes for future reference (eg "Spent a week helping the priestess of Pelor resettle the refugees"), etc.

Sometimes it will turn out that "downtime" in fact needs some action resolution: examples from my game I'm thinking of were when one PC recruited a dockside mercenary, whom the PCs had previously fought, to be the enforcer for his newly-established temple; and when the PCs argued their court case to regain possession of said temple from the wererats who had been squatting in it. I try to resolve these situations, which often don't involve all the party and may be fairly low-stakes, quickly and efficiently while maintaining colour.

These little vignettes can also turn into new scene: for instance, when the eviction notice was served on the wererats, they complied. But then when the PCs went to take up occupancy of the newly-vacated temple it turned out the wererats had left their gargoyles and troll behind.

Or another example: in down time, one PC was researching the books and gear taken from a defeated wizard; another was going around town trying to learn more about the personalities, histories etc of some Orcus cultitst the PCs had defeated. Both these downtime activities turned into scenes - the investigating PC learned where it was that the cultists worshipped outside town, tracked it down, found and descended a stairway into the underdark, and stumbled into an ancient, sealed temple to Orcus.

Meanwhile the researching PC discovered that the defeated wizard had a Leomund's Secret Chest active, and with the help of another PC plus the crystal ball that had also been taken from the enemy wizard he reversed the ritual to teleport the two PCs to the site of the Secret Chest, where they found themselves having to deal with a sphinx.

Now there was no self-standing reason, based simply on the narration of the backstory, to think that these two things were happening at the same time. But in the interests of coherent narrative and coherent play, I deemed the discovery of the temple and the teleportation to the sphinx-guarded chest to be simultaneous, and then adjudicated the two ensuing conflicts side-by-side.

I also, by exercise of GM fiat, stipulated that another Raven Queen-worshipping, Orcus hating PC was with the investigating PC. Given that the fiated PC is a ranger-cleric, and the investigating PC a paladin, it made sense that the ranger would accompany the paladin to find and investigate an Orcus temple outside the city walls.

The fifth PC, the dwarf fighter, I stipulated to be watching the other two Sphinx bothering PCs through the crystal ball - and when they got into an argument with the sphinx that wasn't going to well for them he hurled himself into and through the ball to come through to the sphinx's area. At about that same time the tide began to turn against the sphinx, and at the same time the two PCs in the ancient Orcus temple were being badly creamed by a bunch of demons, and so the Sphinx - who could of course see the fate of those friends far away beneath the ground! - gave the PCs fighting it the option of teleporting to the underdark to save their friends. And they took that option, thereby reuniting the party and leaving the sphinx and the Secret Chest for another day.

That was at the end of 16th level. The PCs are now nearly 21st level, and still in the underdark! (And from memory have had 3 extended rests since then, and are currently angling for a 4th).

While I haven't gotten into a significant period of downtime in the MRQ/Legend game I'm currently running one of the things I'm considering is allowing players to use a hero point to declare something advantageous that happened during downtime.

That sounds a lot like Marvel Heroic Roleplaying, which allows you to spend a plot point during a Transition Scene to activate a "resource" - ie a bonus die that lasts until the end of the next Action Scene.

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

...examples...

I always like hearing your examples. Sounds like a really fun game!