OK. In reply to [MENTION=6700092]JustinAlexander[/MENTION], I'm going to quote myself quoting a game with very explicit scene framing guidance way back on page 2 of this thread. FATE Core. (@Pemerton's already gone with the MHRP example).
AN INCREDIBLY POWERFUL NINJA GM TRICK
Asking the players to contribute something to the beginning of your first scene is a great way to help get them invested in what’s going on right off the bat. If there’s anything that’s flexible about your opening prompt, ask your players to fill in the blanks for you when you start the scene. Clever players may try to use it as an opportunity to push for a compel and get extra fate points right off the bat—we like to call this sort of play “awesome.”
Let’s look at our example scenes above. The prompts don’t specify where the PCs are when they get confronted with their first choices. So, Amanda might start the session by asking Ryan, “Where exactly is Zird when the brute squad from the Collegia comes looking for him?”
Now, even if Ryan just replies with “in his sanctuary,” you’ve solicited his participation and helped him set the scene. But Ryan is awesome, so what he says instead is, “Oh, probably at the public baths, soaking after a long day of research.”
“Perfect!” says Amanda, and holds out a fate point. “So, it’d make sense that your Rivals in the Collegia Arcana would have divined precisely the right time to catch you away from all your magical implements and gear, right?”
Ryan grins and takes the fate point. “Yeah, that sounds about right.”
Now this looks like it's something close to Justin's objections to scene framing, right? After all one of the PCs just got caught by enemies by fiat while he was in the bath and has nothing better for either modesty or self defence than a bathtowel? Justin's objections start to look a little more sensible when put next to actual DMing advice, right?
Wrong. The bathtowel was Ryan's choice. For that matter even the fact Zird has Rivals in the College Arcania was Ryan's choice. Good scene framing wouldn't involve in a city "OK, you're in the taven of the Lonely Wench". It would involve asking the players to describe the tavern they are looking for. It certainly wouldn't involve taking them to a specific store that they hadn't heard of before and having the watch pickpocketed. Now let's look at the advice fon how to frame scenes.
Starting Scenes
When you’re starting a scene, establish the following two things as clearly as you can:
• What’s the purpose of the scene?
• What interesting thing is just about to happen?
Answering the first question is super-important, because the more specific your scene’s purpose, the easier it is to know when the scene’s over. A good scene revolves around resolving a specific conflict or achieving a specific goal—once the PCs have succeeded or failed at doing whatever they are trying to do, the scene’s over. If your scene doesn’t have a clear purpose, you run the risk of letting it drag on longer than you intended and slow the pace of your session down.
Most of the time, the players are going to tell you what the purpose of the scene is, because they’re always going to be telling you what they want to do next as a matter of course. So if they say, “Well, we’re going to the thief ’s safehouse to see if we can get some dirt on him,” then you know the purpose of the scene—it’s over when the PCs either get the dirt, or get into a situation where it’s impossible to get the dirt.
Sometimes, though, they’re going to be pretty vague about it. If you don’t have an intuitive understanding of their goals in context, ask questions until they state things directly. So if a player says, “Okay, I’m going to the tavern to meet with my contact,” that might be a little vague—you know there’s a meeting, but you don’t know what it’s for. You might ask, “What are you interested in finding out? Have you negotiated a price for the information yet?” or another question that’ll help get the player to nail down what he’s after.
Also, sometimes you’ll have to come up with a scene’s purpose all on your own, such as the beginning of a new scenario, or the next scene following a cliffhanger. Whenever you have to do that, try going back to the story questions you came up with earlier and introducing a situation that’s going to directly contribute to answering them. That way, whenever it’s your job to start a scene, you’re always moving the story along.
So the key thing in scene framing is to ask the
players to establish as much as possible. Cranking up the scene framing would be doing the literal opposite of what [MENTION=39153]Justin Alexander[/MENTION] is indicating. It would be asking the PCs why they are going to the tavern and what their plans are. As you crank it up you ask the PCs
more rather than less.
So, the first crank Justin used takes things away from scene framing. Let's have a look at his second crank. Once you have your scene let's see how things go in play. After all, if Justin's crank has anything to do with scene framing, the PCs can't derail the plans. Let's see how that matches up.
THE SCENARIO IN PLAY
So, now you should be ready to begin: you have a problem that can’t be ignored, a variety of story questions that will lead to resolving that problem one way or another, a core group of NPCs and their motivations, and a really dynamic first scene that will get things cooking. Everything should be smooth sailing from here, right? You present the questions, the players gradually answer them, and your story rolls into a nice, neat conclusion.
Yeah... trust us, it’ll never happen that way.
The most important thing to remember when you actually get the scenario off the ground is this: whatever happens will always be different from what you expect. The PCs will hate an NPC you intended them to befriend, have wild successes that give away a bad guy’s secrets very early, suffer unexpected setbacks that change the course of their actions, or any one of another hundred different things that just don’t end up the way you think they should.
Notice that we don’t recommend predetermining what scenes and locations are going to be involved in your scenario—that’s because we find that most of the time, you’re going to throw out most of that material anyway, in the face of a dynamic group of players and their choices. Not all is lost, however—the stuff you have prepared should help you tremendously when players do something unexpected. Your story questions are vague enough that there are going to be multiple ways to answer each one, and you can very quickly axe one that isn’t going to be relevant and replace it with something else on the fly without having to toss the rest of your work.
Amanda had expected that the scene with Landon, Cynere, and Anna would result in a briefly violent reaction, thanks to Landon, followed by the PCs explaining that they’re not with the Cult of Tranquility and everyone realizing that they’re all on the same side.
Right? No.
The first swing of Landon’s sword fells Anna where she stands, killing what would’ve been their first contact with the Sun and Moon Society, an important secret organization opposing thecult. Plus, Anna’s companions are now convinced that he and Cynere are indeed cultists.
So... slight detour. Amanda sees a few ways to go from here:
• The warriors throw caution to the wind, cry “Revenge!” and fight to the death.
• One of the warriors assumes Anna’s role in the scene and continues the conversation.
• The warriors flee (making a concession) and report the killing to their superiors in the secret society, leaving Anna’s body behind.
She decides to go with the third option. These two may be good guys, but they’re not heroes, and neither one of them is up for taking on Landon after that opener. And the odds of them wanting to have a little chat with Anna’s corpse at their feet are, at best, slim.
Plus, Amanda figures Lily and Lenny will want to search the body, which would present a good opportunity to feed them information about the Sun and Moon Society. It’s also a way to bring Zird in on the action—maybe he knows something about the Sun and Moon Society already, and can make contact with them.
Also, knowing your NPCs’ motivations and goals allows you to adjust their behavior more easily than if you’d just placed them in a static scene waiting for the PCs to show up. When the players throw you a curveball, make the NPCs as dynamic and reactive as they are, by having them take sudden, surprising action in pursuit of their goals.
Amanda’s still stuck on Anna’s unexpected demise. She’d planned on making her an entry point for a whole story arc—maybe not a powerful NPC, but a pretty important one nonetheless. So if Anna’s not going to be around anymore, Amanda at least wants to make something out of her death.
She decides that, while the death of a member of the Sun and Moon Society would go unnoticed by most of Riverton, a guy like Hugo the Charitable would certainly hear about it. He’d already taken notice of Landon after he fought off a few Scar Triad goons. And now this. This newcomer is clearly dangerous, potentially a threat. Worst, he doesn’t seem to be working for anyone.
Given Hugo’s high concept aspect of Everyone in Riverton Fears Me, he sees Landon as a potential asset for the Scar Triad. If you can’t beat ‘em, recruit ‘em.
As I'm sure everyone will agree this example of scene framing is really advocating a railroad and making sure the PCs can't ever kill plot NPCs. Right.
Of course the single game I know of that cranks the scene framing the highest is Leverage. In it the players play a team of Robin Hood Conmen and the scenes are explicitely planned
by the players not the DM. At least until the whole thing starts going badly wrong.
