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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6960838" data-attributes="member: 42582">Last night I watched the Natalie Portman/Ashton Kutcher film "No Strings Attached" on TV. It made me think about the importance of contrivance in fiction.In the final sequence in the film (SPOILERS for anyone who cares), three events coincide - Ashton Kutcher's big night as a screenwriter, which leads to him coming back to his flat with the "other woman"; Natalie Portman's sister's wedding, which leads to her feeling lovesick and telephoning Kutcher; and Kutcher's father's hospitalisation, which creates the pretext for getting Kutcher out of his flat and hence away from the other woman before they sleep together, and for Natalie Portman getting a phone call from her friend who works at the hospital, thus triggering the reuniting of the two lead characters.Thinking about stories closer to standard FRPG fare, Star Wars depends on several contrivances - the Millenium Falcon arrives at Alderaan just after the Death Star destroys it, creating the opportunity to rescue the Princess; and then it arrives again at the final battle just in time to help Luke.In LotR, the Rohirrim arrive at Minas Tirith at the rising of the sun, just in time to halt the assault on the gates. And then Aragorn's strategem of distracting Sauron takes effect just at the time that Sam and Frodo are descending into Mordor.Etc. Etc.How do you make sure that the necessary contrivances happen in your FRPGing? In my case, by maintaining a very loose backstory, where things aren't "locked down" until they happen on-screen. In a recent session that I ran, for instance, the PC who had been afflicted with mummy rot while hiding in the sewers and catacombs of Hardby, and who was hoping to find a cleric to heal him, stumbled out of the undercity and onto the docks just in time to see (1) a boat arriving, bearing as its main passenger the great holy man Bernard, who (2) was arriving in the city to officiate at the wedding of the PC's nemesis, and (3) at the same time, saw across the crowd his demon-possessed brother - the first time their paths had crossed for 15-odd years.The characters relationship to his brother, and to his nemesis, have been two of the main drivers of the game since the first session; and the wedding was known to be scheduled to happen in a few days - but framing the PC into the situation just described above, with the cleric he wanted also being connected (by wedding plans, or by geographic proximity) to those other major characters, was an act of contrivance by me as GM. (And it had the desired effect, as the next two sessions involved the unfolding of all the conflicts latent in the scene I just described.)Share your anecdotes, and talk about your methods!</blockquote>

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