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Message: <blockquote data-quote="innerdude" data-source="post: 7563107" data-attributes="member: 85870">Good questions. Let me see if I can thoughtfully respond. 1. In my experience, scene framing encourages player exploration, most commonly within the context of what's been set up as the "current stakes." It encourages players to seek out advantages through creating NPC relationships, finding out more information about their current locale, investigating rumors that may be applicable to their situation, etc. In these kinds of explorations, the players also regularly discover unrelated side bits and non-sequiturs, which they are free to explore if they wish, and in some occasions have later become key components of the fiction. But the focus is generally on exploration for the sake of what's at stake.Now if the players aren't interested in what's at stake, then that's up to me as the GM to determine what they ARE interested in, and shift focus to that. If the players decide that their characters' investment in a given set of stakes is no longer relevant, then that's important. "You know what, we don't really care what happens to the Marquis of Hanover anymore, can we go take out the slave trader ring in the city of Atherun instead?"As GM, I have to be ready, willing, and able to respond to these kinds of things. I'd hope I've conveyed to my players that they have the freedom to say things like this, and that they know I'll take them where they see the "fun". 2. I don't know that I've ever had this really show up as an issue. As a GM, I feel like I'm generally pretty good about clarifying with my players what they're doing and why, what they expect when they reach the next "scene," and how their characters would prepare ahead of time. "So, from what you know of the city of Hakadris, it's a run-down, crime-ridden city that's generally ruled by factions with the most money and power. You know about the rumors of the gang that has a grip on the city, and you know that your reputation is likely going to follow you when you arrive. You gathered information on contacts A and B in the city that are if not friendly, at least neutral to your cause. You captured the shipment of Drakassian lizards at the docks, and as a result you've gotten several leads on who sold the gang the Drakassian lizards, and you know you can follow up on those as well."From what I understand, your goal in the city is to continue consolidating power and reputation, and make inroads on disrupting the gang's operations. Is there anything else you feel like your characters should know before you arrive in the city? Is there anything else you want to do ahead of time?"This type of discussion would be a very common interlude to a scene from me as a GM. And I would do absolutely everything within my power to take their responses and suggestions and apply them as inputs into the framing of the next scene (or set of scenes).Depending on how successful they are at making certain checks, I may also provide them additional information about what they might expect when they arrive, may introduce additional favorable benefits for them to apply in the next scene, etc. For example, if a player had an exceptional success on an "Investigate" check in Savage Worlds, I might on the spot consider the possibility that the scene might include a hidden ally that I hadn't initially considered.The goal for all of this is to avoid the players having to constantly ask, "Can I do this? What about this? What about this?" If they're asking those things in good faith because the stakes and scene framing are unclear, that's up to me to fix. And I think over time, my players and I have developed a good rapport about this sort of thing, where they know that my only interest is in helping them have fun, and to present them interesting challenges. In the back of my mind, I do often think about extrapolations of what could/would happen if the players either succeed or fail. "So if the players succeed, I suspect NPC X will do this (if he's still alive), and Faction Z will probably respond this way, but if they fail, it would probably go this way or this way, but that's not set in stone. And there are a million things the party could do between now and then that could change the next set of scenes, and maybe something they do will introduce a new obstacle or grant them an unexpected boon," etc. My goal is to use principled scene framing play to create an enjoyable play experience, and though Savage Worlds is very much a "traditional" discrete action/resolution style of system, I use the mechanics of "fortune points" and "success with a raise" on player checks to facilitate that play as best I can.</blockquote>

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