Anybody used vignettes in their games?

[NewJeffCT]

I was going through my DMG2 the other week and was intrigued about the section on vignettes.

The examples they used there were to either expand on a bit from a player’s background or to possibly foreshadow an upcoming villain.

The example of foreshadowing an upcoming villain mentions having the players each take up the role of a guardsman at a normally quiet border outpost. Have the players do a few things in terms of “guarding”, but focus on some sort of activity that would help pass the time – maybe playing cards, dice, some sort of gambling.

After some time getting into the characters, the DM drops into a narrative & describes an overwhelming assault from mind flayers and their allies. Since the guards are minion types, or low level soldiers, they have no hope against the mind flayers, but let the player who is most creative in staying alive be the last one killed. The lead mind flayer then tortures that last guardsman before sucking his brain out.

Then, later on, the players may hear about the outpost being overrun, or not long after, the town where the PCs are (close to the outpost) suffers a rash of disappearances. But, the vignette has already set up the mind flayers as evil & ruthless and the players likely already hate the leader for the torture & brain sucking.

Has anybody worked in this sort of vignette in game? How did it go over? Were you a player or DM for this vignette?

I was thinking of using it in a similar situation to intro an upcoming villain in game.

 

[Nagol]

As a player I'm not fond of them generally since they either make me aware of things my character is not or force my attention away from the character I want to play onto a character I don't.

I've tried them very occasionally over the years and don't like the technique as a DM for many of the same reasons though I still use them occasionally as a 'break' for the players if they start to flag in a long running situation. I use them more as a break from campaign play than an attempt to provide additional colour or information to the players.

In Ars Magica, there was an "apprentice picnic" that had the players take over their apprentices out on a picnic that went over pretty well. The player's mages were all busy in their labs for the time and the region around the covenant was quiet.

In CHAMPIONS, the players took over a set of villains dealing with a problem when their heores were partway through a very long adventure arc.

I generally float the idea ahead of time, gauge player interest, and then pursue it as I would another form of short campaign break.

 

[Wednesday Boy]

My GM in a PBEM does this every 1,000 posts and it's one of the most anticipated elements of the game. They detail either events that happen that our characters are not aware of or events that have happened in the past. In both instances he does a great job at giving some part of the story away without giving all of it away. It's a great way to get the players as involved in figuring out the mysteries of the campaign as the PCs. I think if something similar was done in a tabletop game, I'd be just as enthused about it as long as it didn't take away from me playing my character too frequently.

 

[Dungeoneer]

I was going through my DMG2 the other week and was intrigued about the section on vignettes.

The examples they used there were to either expand on a bit from a player’s background or to possibly foreshadow an upcoming villain.

The example of foreshadowing an upcoming villain mentions having the players each take up the role of a guardsman at a normally quiet border outpost. Have the players do a few things in terms of “guarding”, but focus on some sort of activity that would help pass the time – maybe playing cards, dice, some sort of gambling.

After some time getting into the characters, the DM drops into a narrative & describes an overwhelming assault from mind flayers and their allies. Since the guards are minion types, or low level soldiers, they have no hope against the mind flayers, but let the player who is most creative in staying alive be the last one killed. The lead mind flayer then tortures that last guardsman before sucking his brain out.

Then, later on, the players may hear about the outpost being overrun, or not long after, the town where the PCs are (close to the outpost) suffers a rash of disappearances. But, the vignette has already set up the mind flayers as evil & ruthless and the players likely already hate the leader for the torture & brain sucking.

Has anybody worked in this sort of vignette in game? How did it go over? Were you a player or DM for this vignette?

I was thinking of using it in a similar situation to intro an upcoming villain in game.

I've run before as sort of a flashback to some events that were critical to the story that the characters would not have been present for. Basically, the players got to role play a big and significant piece of exposition. It was a big hit, the players had a ball and wanted to do one again. They were also much more invested in the backstory after that.

On the Wizards forum there was a long thread about ideas for ways you could use vignettes a while back. Some were really cool. One idea I liked is that if you have a player who needs to do a short solo mission you could use a vignette to keep the other players involved. For instance, if my character goes off on his own to confront his wayward brother, other players could run my brother, his bad news girlfriend, etc.

We didn't roll any dice during the vignette I ran. The players just told me what they wanted to do and I told them whether it worked or it didn't. No stats that way.

I did hand each player a card with a very short background blurb on their character, as well as a goal, an ally, an enemy and a dark secret. They took these and ran with them. It was a lot of fun.

 

[KidSnide]

I frequently use a vignette-like element to my games. For example:

* When a PC has a mission without the other PCs, the other players usually play the relevant NPCs. It keeps everyone involved and the other players usually want to know what happened.

* When major NPC allies get into a fight, I'll often have the players play their allies. It creates very exciting battles because the major NPC allies are at a serious risk of dying, and the players are very interested in the outcome. (Plus, it provides a great opportunity to die heroically without losing your primary character.)

* When a character goes through a major psionic event, I'll sometimes have the other players act out various aspects of the affected character's personality.

-KS

 

[NewJeffCT]

I've run before as sort of a flashback to some events that were critical to the story that the characters would not have been present for. Basically, the players got to role play a big and significant piece of exposition. It was a big hit, the players had a ball and wanted to do one again. They were also much more invested in the backstory after that.

On the Wizards forum there was a long thread about ideas for ways you could use vignettes a while back. Some were really cool. One idea I liked is that if you have a player who needs to do a short solo mission you could use a vignette to keep the other players involved. For instance, if my character goes off on his own to confront his wayward brother, other players could run my brother, his bad news girlfriend, etc.

We didn't roll any dice during the vignette I ran. The players just told me what they wanted to do and I told them whether it worked or it didn't. No stats that way.

I did hand each player a card with a very short background blurb on their character, as well as a goal, an ally, an enemy and a dark secret. They took these and ran with them. It was a lot of fun.

thanks - sounds interesting

 

[kitsune9]

Oh yeah, I'm a big fan of vignettes. I use them periodically, but don't overdo it. I use them as a rp session.

For example, I wanted a vignette to deal with a paladin who has been misbehaving. We had a big trial in which the other players rp'd the judge, prosecutor, and defense.

Another one was where a group of NPC's argued on a plan to get one of the players to engage in a particular course of action. This action would then form the story for a future adventure that I would work on.

The last one I did for the current campaign was the PC's took on the role of various factions to influence a baron to ally them with.

 

[pemerton]

I haven't exactly run a backstory vignette like the mindflayers and the guards example in the DMG2.

What I have done is use very brief dream sequences as a way of imparting this sort of information. The wizard PC in my game uses Object Reading a fair bit also, which gives another chance for this sort of thing.

And in my last session I sent the PCs back in time 100 years, so they got to scout out their current location before it became so ruined, get some information about it, and about historical matters more generally, they otherwise couldn't have got (including by rescuing and then talking to a trapped NPC), and have their interest piqued in some mysteries that they will now probably try and solve back in the "now" of the campaign.

 

[fba827]

I commonly used to do this in PBEMs that I DMed and also had other DMs of PBEMs do this for the group. It was well received in that medium.

In face-to-face games, I know one group thta I used to play with that it worked well for. But I also know other groups where it would not work well since those players would not appreciate it and instead consider it a distraction from thier own PCs.

So it depends a lot on the individual mindset as well as the group collective mindset.

look for stuff like how much are the players in to story and actor types. how hard is it to control their attention span. do they get in to backstory elements. do they get a little frustrated when attention is not on their PC/the group. etc ?

 

[lamia]

I haven't tried this yet, but I'm thinking about it.

I have a group with 3 very dedicated players who have never missed a session, and 2 who do occasionally miss. Those 2 are married, so if one cancels the other won't be there either. But I like to still run something for those that are there, usually I'll just do a one-off with pre-generated folks to pick from.

I think tying a one-off to the campaign this way would be way more fun for them! I'll definitely have to give it a shot. Especially since it's fun to hear the recounts of what the absent folks missed. I'd just let the players re-cap for me, and see what exactly they found most important and what they completely missed.

Thanks for the thread, I've been trying to figure out a good way to handle absent player syndrome and I think this will be something my group will enjoy!