In the
RPG Structure and Recruitment Problems thread, there have been some mentions of soap operas and RPGs. So I'm finally going to post a draft version of this article I'm working on.
A few points to note:
- I do not intend this model to work for all games. It's an alternative model, is all.
- As noted in the article, I am deliberately abstracting the model away from traditional soap themes and premises.
- The discussion of other models at the outset is intended to set a range, not as a strong critique of any existing model.[/list:u]Okay, so here goes. Any and all comments or criticisms appreciated!
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
On The Soap-Opera As RPG Model
There is a considerable range in RPG narrative models these days, deriving from any number of fictional sources. Each choice has its strengths and weaknesses, and will have considerable effect on a game at both the session and the campaign level. Some models strongly encourage particular GNS styles as well as Stance perspectives, while others seem more or less open. In this article, I would like to present an unusual model that might have value for many games.
Away from the Dominant Story Arc
Most explicit narrative models in RPGs depend upon the notion of "arc." Discussions of session, in particular, strongly encourage this traditional narrative structure: beginning (problem, premise, issue), middle (development, tension, conflict), climax, denouement .(1) The campaign as well often follows this structure, with a series of somewhat episodic sessions building overall to a grand story arc.
To take a classic literary example well known to RPG players, consider The Lord of the Rings, which has several identifiable story-arcs within a grand campaign-arc. For example, the passage through Moria has a complete story-arc, but makes up only a small episode in the grand arc of the novel.
Insofar as one can object to the dominant story-arc in the abstract, the difficulty lies in the necessarily bounded form: the campaign cannot go forever, but must eventually reach a conclusion. To force a successful campaign to continue indefinitely, if the model is story-like, will generally either lead to collapse or require a re-formulation, in essence a sequel to the original "text" of the campaign, starting up a whole new arc. But as we all know, sequels are only rarely as good as the originals, and very rarely indeed superior. A Lord of the Rings, part II: The Return of Sauron would be tedious, and antithetical to the structure of the novel itself.
By way of contrast, Dungeons and Dragons had an entirely different structure, traditionally. Rather than working in an arc, it was linear, with characters rising from level to level. One might perhaps look back on a particularly effective session or series of sessions as having an arc, with hindsight, but the game design did not particularly support such structures, nor was such arc-formation encouraged as a play priority in-session. Not surprisingly, perhaps, a group which found D&D's challenges and general perspective satisfying might continue their campaign essentially forever, and from this most influential of all games came the idea of a twenty-year campaign as a kind of Holy Grail.
Of course, gaming is no longer bound — if it ever was so — by the D&D model. In fact, many groups, perhaps especially those with more Narrativist interests, have moved increasingly toward the one-shot or very brief campaign as a normative structure. This encourages intensive focus on story arc, on creating a satisfying story with narrative unity, revolving around a specific premise and set of concerns. Within Narrativism, this focus rests squarely on encouraging players to consider a game as having a literary structure.
This development has clearly liberated many gaming groups, and added to their enjoyment of the hobby. But one difficulty, even within Narrativist gaming, is that not every premise, nor every story type, can receive effective play treatment in a very short campaign. So how might we imagine a campaign structure that would address story-focused meta-concerns(2) and simultaneously support very lengthy campaigns?
A second issue is what Bryan Bankhead has called "recruitment" problems . Suppose that your group likes to play "traditional" RPGs, with long campaign arcs. You will have trouble dealing with shifts in the makeup of the player group, be it a missing player or a newcomer.
So is there a way around this?
The Soap-Opera
In the television soap-opera, we can find an alternative narrative model. This model strongly encourages character focus, emotional and personal drama, and of course nearly infinite temporal extension.(3) Whether or not one appreciates watching soaps as such, their uncanny ability to maintain viewer loyalty and interest across truly amazing spans of time deserves our respect, and invites us to learn.
As an RPG model, the soap offers a number of interesting advantages. Character "protagonization" can be emphasized to an extraordinary degree, because the model is in a sense not really built for much else. Campaigns can run as long as the group likes, without ever needing to lessen or heighten intensity. At the same time, intensity can increase, perhaps the most famous examples in relatively recent times being the wedding of Luke and Laura and the Dallas "Who Shot J.R.?" problem.(4) Conversely, when a given running thread becomes slow or dull, for whatever reason, that thread can shift to the background without in any way impeding play; this would be particularly useful when a player is absent for one or more sessions.
So how might this work as a game model? I'm glad you asked.
The Plots
A number of intertwined plots run concurrently in a soap. Each plot has its own arc, but unlike in most other narrative models, no singular arc dominates the soap. The characters all have interconnections, usually via two sprawling families. As a rule, these families are hierarchical, with a patriarch and a matriarch; further, the two families are commonly at odds in some general or specific fashion. This causes a permanent tension, never resolved. Events focusing on this interfamilial dynamic, which in a sense stands in for the dominant arc, usually involve the patriarch or matriarch of one or the other family.
The critical issues in soaps are scenes (or conversations) and plots, where a conversation is a kind of scene that does not need its own dramatic tension. If a plot focuses on a couple, for example, one half of the couple may have an extended conversation with someone else, but the conversation focuses on the couple, and particularly the absent partner.
Some plots focus on a single character, but usually they focus on a pair, especially a romantic couple; most famously, soap plots often focus on three characters in a love-triangle or similar structure. A few plots, particularly those that relate more directly to the overarching interfamilial opposition, may involve a great many characters, all of whom have their own independent plots. When a given plot is firmly resolved, as by a character's death, the characters dominant in it cycle into the background and into subsidiary positions in other plots for a while, then return with a new plot or split a plot out of the ones they have joined. Plot conclusions only extremely rarely coincide; as a rule, only one plot may be resolved at a time. As a plot moves toward its climax, it receives increased focus and screen-time.
The Weekly Episode
The soap daily episode spreads across an entire week. This entails a great deal of suspenseful delaying, and a generally slower pace of plot development than most RPG groups would accept. While such delaying is essential to the model, slowing the pace to the degree of a soap would be undesirable in RPG play; for example, a given PC plot development which takes three or four sessions simply to explain, because of constant repetition and cross-references to past history, would likely drive players away from the game. In actual soaps, these tactics enable a viewer to miss a few episodes — or a month — and pick up readily where he left off; in most gaming groups, however, it is assumed that the players pay attention to every episode, and such repeated exposition is unnecessary. So for RPG purposes, I abstract the session model from an entire week of a soap, rather than a single episode.
In one week, every plot must be touched upon. Focal plots, i.e. those moving towards climax, certainly get screen time on Monday and Friday, and fairly often in between. Plots well out of the mainstream may need nothing more than an apparently casual reference in a conversation or two across the week's span.(5) Most plots get touched on regularly throughout the week.
Each active plot in a week follows a relatively conventional story arc, but without dénouement. Thus it is not that this model shifts away from all story arcs, but rather that it splinters them across the vast character roster. We may think of this trimmed story model as consisting of Exposition, Dramatic Tension, and Climax.
In Exposition, we learn what issue or question within the larger plot will take center stage this week. As an example, Mary says, "John, I have something very important to tell you about your wife, Janet."
In Dramatic Tension, some additional factor enters, delaying or complicating the week's issue. For example, Janet walks into the room before John can hear the very important thing. The focus now is on John trying to get away from Janet so he can hear the very important thing; Janet, however, babbles relatively aimlessly about a different group of characters and their plot, linking the two plots together. Note here that Dramatic Tension is caused by (1) delaying tactics, and (2) tie-ins to other plots.
In Climax, we get the payoff, a release of the Tension that sets up next week's drama. The conflict itself is resolved one way or another, which may itself be the climax, but usually is essentially incidental. This is not unlike a cliffhanger: "John, that baby Janet's carrying isn't yours!" In the more common version, John has managed to get Janet to go elsewhere, or Janet has finally finished gossiping about David and Sarah, and has moved off to her secret tryst with George (she has been gossiping to cover her nervous and excited state). Less usual would be Mary deciding that now would be a good time for a showdown, perhaps because she wants John to divorce Janet so that she herself can marry him; Mary thus announces this fact in front of Janet.
The most important principle of scene structuring is this: as soon as the desired dramatic intensity has been achieved, the show cuts to another scene. An intense scene is thus spread across several episodes, even sometimes across weeks.(6)
When abstracting the model to the RPG, I will assume that the average game is not focused on the traditional soap-opera issue of love. In a way, one could examine the soap format in terms of the Edwardian Premise, where the Premise is, "What would you do for love?" The purpose of this model, however, is to imagine using ideas from soaps in campaigns with very different (implicit or explicit) Premises.
The Soap-RPG
To begin thinking about how this might work in an RPG, let's begin by considering these many plots with reference to the classic story-arc. Each plot has a very strongly delineated arc, in classic style, but many of them run concurrently. If you imagine a single plot as looking something like a sine wave (lull points to climaxes), the soap will look rather like a nightmarishly complex biorhythm chart, with something always climaxing and something always at a lull. If an entire campaign commonly has a single-arc structure when seen at a distance, the soap campaign looks at that level of abstraction like a straight, thick line.
We might employ this model by thinking of four categories of plots: PC, Group, Background, and Setting. The first two are essential; the latter two are occasional and may be added or dropped at need.PC plots focus on single PCs and their personal histories. Skill development, romance, individual secret goings-on, and so forth are generally PC plots.
Group plots are classic RPG plots, centered around the "party."
Background plots involve no PCs directly. They are usually run in short bursts by the GM, often as monologues. A classic would be the cut to the arch-villain, who chortles about how his new evil device will allow him to destroy Schenectady.
Exposition plots are relatively unusual. They are simply opportunities for the players to explore the setting or otherwise have some GM exposition about game-world details. This occurs primarily as a setup for a developing Group plot.[/list:u]Each play session has three chapters: Exposition, Tension, and Climax. In each chapter, every PC and Group plot should be touched upon, and usually (though not necessarily always) given screen time. Background plots and Setting plots are optional, but should occur often enough to maintain consistency and continuity. When any given plot is currently out of the limelight, having lost impetus or else concluded satisfactorily, the players should be encouraged to refer to it in conversation in other scenes, maintaining linkage.
Each scene normally deals with only one plot, though tie-ins are not only appropriate but desirable; usually such tie-ins will require no more than a passing reference. The scene has a rising arc, following the general structure of the chapter. As soon as the expected level of intensity is achieved, we cut to the next plot. Some plots can achieve intensity very rapidly, and should be allowed a little more screen time if it seems they will keep escalating. Some plots will require considerable Exposition, in which case the Tension and Climax will be relatively short and low-intensity. This is actually desirable, because it means that next week, the Exposition can be very short and the Climax thus relatively high-intensity. The more such differences happen among plots, the more they will naturally come to be dominant or dormant.
The various plots do not need to move in any set cycle or pattern, so long as every one gets its moment. Starting with a Background plot is a useful warmup, but if one plot left hanging last week seems to be on the players' minds, it can start the show immediately. Alternatively, a climaxing plot may start the show. Similarly, concluding with a Background plot can set the stage effectively for the next session, and act as a cool-down, but it may be equally appropriate to end with the climax of a plot that is finishing up. If one scene in some fashion links naturally to another, e.g. through overt reference, thematic similarity, or character overlap, this link should be foregrounded by cutting to that plot.
Cuts among scenes should follow Fang Langford's "cut to the meat" conception. Cuts should start scenes as close to the meat of the action as possible, then end before all the blood (momentum) is lost. This is not unlike a cliffhanger approach, except that it is compressed into only a portion of the session.
Plots should be explicitly or implicitly graded into dominant, active, or dormant. This dictates the amount of screen time which must be devoted to each. As sessions roll on, the plots should cycle through these. Importantly, a satisfactory conclusion to a plot should shift it from dominant to dormant. This also prevents bleeding the meat dry.Example:
Previously established: Martha wants to talk to John.
Exposition: Martha is talking to John. She builds up, as she's "not sure she should tell him," then says, "John, I have something really important to say about your wife, Janet." CUT.
Dramatic Tension: Janet enters. She talks about a different plot, delaying the action. John tries to get her out of the room. He finally succeeds, and he and Martha are alone. CUT.
Climax: John confronts Martha. "You've got to tell me!" "Okay, well, the thing is, the baby Janet's carrying isn't yours!" CUT.
Example:
Previously established: Anne has a big plan to assassinate David.
Exposition: Anne is setting up the kill. She details her methods, gets in place, and focuses the rifle scope. The crosshairs dip down and center on David's head. CUT.
Dramatic Tension: David starts having a conversation with Anne's husband, Fred, who has just entered. Anne can't shoot, because David keeps moving, and besides, Fred would be traumatized and might also guess the identity of the assassin. After a bit of discussion, focused either on Anne or on another plot, Fred finally leaves. CUT.
Climax: Anne refocuses the scope, breathes slowly, and pulls the trigger. Depending on the larger situation, CUT; or the shot misses, CUT; or the shot goes home, CUT.[/list:u]
PC Plots
Playing in Group plots is fairly easy to explain, because it is the normative model in traditional RPGs. But playing in PC plots can be difficult, because the scenes naturally protagonize one player and not others. The obvious way to handle this effectively is to have every player play a minor character, perhaps not of his own devising. Such minor characters should probably be handed over to a given player permanently, however, as this maintains continuity, and also aids in developing a minor character who might at some future point shift to the foreground. In the Anne's Assassination example above, Anne is a PC, while Fred and David are NPCs played by other players. Among other things, this prevents a player being upset when his character is murdered.
The central issues of the PC plot are always based upon that PC. This does not, however, mean that all scenes in the plot need to involve that PC directly. The PC should appear at least once, but a long conversation among minor characters about the PC, climaxing with the PC herself walking in on the conspirators, is perfectly workable.
For example, in Anne's Assassination, suppose Anne wants to assassinate David because he murdered her son. In the conversation between David and Fred (which she can hear through a shotgun microphone), however, it becomes clear that Fred actually did it, not David. David says, "Look, she may be your wife, but I love her; you know that. You've got one week to tell her the truth, or so help me I will. And I've got proof." So in the Climax, Anne decides not to pull the trigger. The fact that this entire session of Anne's PC plot has amounted to her not doing anything at all is irrelevant: this session has been a major deal for Anne.
Soaps, Stances, and GNS
The soap format works particularly smoothly with Narrativist play and various kinds of Directorial Stances. The character-intensive structure of the soap is excellent for focusing on premise, particularly moral questions and issues; after all, this is what drives actual television soap operas, where the premise is primarily love and its moral complexities. Also, the GM does not need to know where any given plot is going, as this can be invented on the fly by the players. For example, the switcheroo between Fred and David might well have been improvised by the players on the spot.
At the same time, the soap format allows for considerable predetermination by the GM in certain areas. A single plot may come to have a set focus and goal, for example a classic mystery structure, in which the GM knows the "real truth" and the players do not. So long as most plots do not simultaneously work this way, the whole session does not become a GM-controlled railroad.
An essential point about the structure is that it only works if everyone understands it. It must be "open," in the sense that everyone must know what is expected in each type of plot or scene. This is one reason that Narrativism is well supported by the soap format. True Simulationism is relatively difficult, because theoretically meta-concerns should be irrelevant in a Simulationist game.
For a soap to work, common agreement should direct cuts much of the time: if the group feels strongly about which should be the next plot, that should be respected. In a similar vein, players should feel free to resist cuts at times, if they have an explicit reason for wanting to continue; for example, if a player feels that the scene should reach a higher point of intensity than it has done, and has a sense of where that point will be, this is useful and should be respected.
For example, in Anne's Assassination, the cut from the conversation between Fred and David may provoke links to a plot also focused on the murder of Anne's son. George, after all, is a detective who's trying to solve the crime, and has been lacking a lot of clues; his Exposition scene told of an important discovery, but nobody knew what it was. The Dramatic Tension scene, cut to immediately, will now be the entrance of Fred's mistress, who will try to prevent George from discovering the bloody handkerchief.
Soap as Experimental Form
Soaps permit a wide range of freedom for experimentation. Whole plots can be tossed aside post facto, with complete group agreement ("And then I woke up"). Plots can try out genre expectations sharply at odds with the main thrust of the game. Minor characters can suddenly become major ones, and old PCs can readily become minor characters. Flashbacks, dreams, and other forms of time-alteration are permissible.
Just remember that every one of these things is a gimmick, a magic trick. If you do a magic trick brilliantly once, it's brilliant; if you do the same trick five times, it's terrible.
With respect to "experimental" RPGs, many techniques are readily applicable to the soap model. Cycling GMs seems relatively easy here, as there is no particular reason that every plot has to be run by any specific GM. In all likelihood, particular plots will come to be proprietary to a given GM, just as minor characters become proprietary to particular players. But if a plot goes dormant, or just loses steam, there is nothing to prevent a mutually-agreed switch of GM to someone who has a great idea for moving things forward.
Again, GNS Transitions are easily incorporated into the soap. Any one plot can become strongly oriented to particular GNS goals without that dominating other plots, which entails that a player with GNS interests at variance with the majority can "get what he wants" without negatively affecting other portions of the campaign. At the same time, Transitions can easily shift one plot to another mode of play as the current feeling dictates, without this requiring an overall campaign Transition.
Furthermore player discomfort with Stance shifts can be minimized in this format. Players who enjoy such shifts can use them extensively in their own PC plots, perhaps encouraging others to use them by example, but a player who wants to stick to a "straight" Actor Stance may dictate this within her PC plot.
The only caveat to such dictation of Stance or GNS goals is that the central player should generally be the dictator, not the current GM. The place to experiment with new GM styles is in Group plots; PC plots should be aesthetically dominated (though not necessarily to the point of exclusion) by the central players.
Ending the Soap
The soap model supports very, very long campaigns, since there is never any reason to stop. But any campaign can come to an end. When trying to wrap up, everyone must help. PC plots must link heavily into the group plot, and drive toward a point at which everything can be cut loose except the group plot. In a related vein, the group plot must move to incorporate all the others. Then the one group plot can wind up with a satisfying climax and dénouement, leaving the entire campaign fairly well wrapped up.
Conclusions
The soap opera as an RPG form is weakest when it comes to action scenes. In many games, combats can run on for an hour or more without stopping; in a soap-structured game, this will radically de-emphasize other plots. So action scenes must be quick and gripping, or must be cut into pieces spread across a session, which last may well be annoying to players. The obvious exception is the occasional Group Plot combat scene, but overemphasis here might set up a slippery slope, such that players come to think of the Group Plot as the "real" Plot, with the others incidental.
The soap is strongest when it comes to extended meditations on premise, and similarly when character depth is a central issue. While a given character may begin as something of a stereotype, it will quickly gain exceptional depth and complexity as it intersects with numerous different plots and stories. Every PC gets his moment in the sun, but every PC and player will also need to be supportive and helpful when it's another's turn.
The greatest strength, of course, is that if the characters become deep and complex, and the majority of plots are challenging and exciting, then every session is a series of high points, with few lows. This means that every session naturally demands a follow-up, leading to very long and intricately detailed campaigns. At the same time, the fluidity of structure allows for drastic shifts in player makeup. In theory, there is no reason to stop, no natural progression toward a particular end. You're not likely to compete with Guiding Light, but a multi-year campaign of constant interest is not at all impossible, and can be very rewarding.
Notes
1. Denouement: This term is commonly used quite loosely in RPG discussions. As Fang Langford has noted, it is usually used to mean "cool-down," which is not at all its technical meaning in literary criticism. I will distinguish between the two.
2. Story-focused meta-concerns: I use this phrase to avoid confusion with Narrativism per se.
3. The Young and the Restless premiered in 1973, Days of Our Lives in 1965, General Hospital in April, 1963; even the longest-running RPGs pale into insignificance before Guiding Light, which premiered on radio January 25, 1937!
4. I'm not going to deal with evening soaps, such as Dallas and Dynasty, which had a different format and seem to have died anyway.
5. The casual reference: Here we see an essential tool in the soap repertoire, i.e. the illusion of interconnection created by passing reference.
6. Note that "dramatic intensity" can also include positive emotional intensity, as for example in a wedding scene, where the Climax is "I do."
Man. That's great stuff. (You may also want to note the way soap opera conventions manifest in professional wrestling.)
I'd just like to say that's freakin' brilliant.
Hi Chris,
I'll be the dissenter here. What's being offered, actually?
Don't get me wrong - the essence of this post is that I agree with every word you've presented.
However, I'm a little shocked that any of the material you've offered is being perceived as a revelation. How is it that any of the following is new to anyone?
1) Protagonists engage audience attention because their concerns are understood and "felt" by us.
2) Resolution of conflicts carries an automatic message that is actually constructed by the viewer, but perceived as external (which is to say, intrinsic to the story).
3) Pacing how information and events are delivered to maximize both of the above is the heart of composing a story.
Superhero comics are soap operas - always have been, always will be. I think one of the main reasons Champions basically "won" the early-80s death-match for premiere superhero role-playing game was because it was the only one of the many current designs to incorporate soap-opera elements into character creation. Champions - the great incoherent game design of all time - was forced to Drift in play, and those of us who Drifted it hard-a-right Narrativist found one another easily. We used the principles you describe aggressively. Many early supplements and scenarios for Champions were essentially "build your own soap with this, this and this" toolkits.
The question for role-playing began then, and it remains: who is the author? If the answer is shared, then when and how? This is not a Narrativist issue; it is a role-playing one. Sorcerer offers one sort of answer. JAGS offers another. Universalis offers another. Tunnels & Trolls offers another. Vampire, textually, doesn't offer any.
Maybe I'm the one who needs some re-orienting - if people are finding Chris' post enlightening, then what were they thinking before they read it? That is a complete mystery to me.
Best,
Ron
Quote from: Ron Edwards
Maybe I'm the one who needs some re-orienting - if people are finding Chris' post enlightening, then what were they thinking before they read it? That is a complete mystery to me.
I don't know that it is enlightening, per se, but I did find it extremely useful to read for a couple of reasons.
First, you (and others) talk about pacing issues a great deal. I know that pacing is of utmost importance - I've played in both games that handled it well and games that handled it poorly. I rarely see useful advice that's more than a tip here or there on how to acheive good pacing. Chris attempts to develop a framework which has good pacing as a natural feature.
Second, the post put into concrete language a lot of thoughts that I'd seen (or had) before and provided me with framework for them by analogy to a common narrative form. (I'll note that when I read the post, I was thinking that comics would have worked as well as, if not better than, soap operas - particularly insofar as they incorporate action scenes in a more central manner.)
So was the post revolutionary? Not particularly. Was it something I found to be extremely useful and interesting, though? Yup.
Stuart
Quote from: Ron EdwardsSuperhero comics are soap operas - always have been, always will be. I think one of the main reasons Champions basically "won" the early-80s death-match for premiere superhero role-playing game was because it was the only one of the many current designs to incorporate soap-opera elements into character creation. Champions - the great incoherent game design of all time - was forced to Drift in play, and those of us who Drifted it hard-a-right Narrativist found one another easily. We used the principles you describe aggressively.
Do superhero comics really follow this? My impression was that they were instead serially episodic -- i.e. close to the format of an action TV series such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, rather than a soap opera like Guiding Light. For example, in each issue Spiderman or whoever would face a significant challenge which would be the focus of that issue. NOTE: I've never read much of superhero comics even as a kid, though I have gotten into Astro City recently.
Quote from: Ron EdwardsMaybe I'm the one who needs some re-orienting - if people are finding Chris' post enlightening, then what were they thinking before they read it? That is a complete mystery to me.
OK, I will state in short form what I got out of it. To me the new thing was the rigid structure: i.e. the idea that in each RPG session you will always touch on all of the plots currently in play; and that none of them are the "main plot". That's not something I do in my current game. I would say that about three-quarters of my sessions are dominated by a single group plot. For example, last session all of the PCs went on a search for one PC's missing son (Poul's son Maushop). There were a number of subplots which came up in PC interactions, but it was definitely centered around the group search.
Some of my sessions are like soap operas, though, cutting back and forth among the PCs and time to all the various interactions. I have never tried to push to have an entire campaign run this way, however. It seems daunting, and yet knowing about how soap operas do it give some hope to working it in an RPG. One worry I have is that soap opera structure doesn't often allow open group discussion/interaction amongst the PCs/players, which occurs pretty frequent in my games. Another issue is secrets. By the model, all scenes are open information to the players (thought not the PCs). However, there is some hidden background which some players should probably know -- i.e. one PCs player might know that she is secretly a ninja-trained assassin. Which things are known to all players, some players, or no players?
For me, at least, the clarity of it makes a difference. I still don't have an opinion on the GNS-specific parts, but the rest said things mostly but not entirely familiar to me, just in a much clearer way than I'd seen before. It's the kind of thing I could very easily see presenting to a wider audience and expecting them to get a lot of good out of it, which isn't at all the case of most theory or analysis. And I like it when something teaches me something and seems like it could teach my customers things, too.
Quote from: John KimTo me the new thing was the rigid structure: i.e. the idea that in each RPG session you will always touch on all of the plots currently in play; and that none of them are the "main plot". That's not something I do in my current game. I would say that about three-quarters of my sessions are dominated by a single group plot.
This (moving between stories) actually is dominant in Multiverser play.
Quote from: John thenOne worry I have is that soap opera structure doesn't often allow open group discussion/interaction amongst the PCs/players, which occurs pretty frequent in my games.
I wondered about this quite a bit, particularly when we were in playtesting. What I discovered was that there are several things that work in your favor in all this.
- You can both create tension and cover dull moments by switching at critical times. A great example of this is the moment one of my player's characters walked into a cave rather nonchalantly, with a couple of NPC companions, and I said, "There's a dragon in here, and he sees you." At that moment I turned my attention to another player. This keeps the first player sitting on the edge of his seat because he's very worried about what is going to happen next in his situation; but it also gives him that moment to think about what his character should do, to act instead of react to the situation in front of him. As it happens, he chose rather poorly, and got toasted (but that happens sometimes, and it was a good time for him to move to another world--he really was done there); but he had time to think about it without everyone fumbling about for what they were going to do and creating that dull moment.
- In that moment of tension, it almost didn't matter whether the next player's story was particularly interesting. I wasn't going to lose my audience, as it were, because no matter how dull this moment was everyone was waiting to hear what happened to the first player. Because of the multiple staging, you can have tension and quiet happening at the same time--the game doesn't get dull just because at this moment one player is getting fitted for a suit of armor or spending time practicing his archery, because the other stories keep it alive.
- Behind that is perhaps the most important point I learned: everyone at the table is interested in everyone else's stories. I run a forum game in which the players are more apart than together, each in his own thread in his own world most of the time. Everyone reads all the threads, and comments on each other's games in side threads. In General Hospital (my wife use to watch, before she was a nurse) a lot of people tune in to see what's happening with Luke and Laura; but they're held by all the stories, coming back to see what happens to everyone. We tend to think that while the focus is on what Bob is doing, everyone else is bored and twiddling their thumbs. That's only true if Bob's story is boring; and if it is, we've got several other more interesting stories going which everyone knows will return in a moment, and we certainly hope that something's going to happen to spice up Bob's situation soon enough.
- Whether player interaction should be stifled by the limits on character interaction is a serious question in role play. That is, if my wizard is in one room trying to figure out how to open the secret door and Bob's fighter is in another room trying to fight off the troll, can I, the player, tell Bob, the player, to remember to burn the troll parts so they don't regenerate? I usually do allow players to coach each other in play, to some degree. I figure it helps some overcome the fact that they aren't physically on the spot where they would see what was happening. If you don't allow that kind of thing, of course it becomes more isolationist, much more like playing and then watching (although it's fun to watch, too). But just because you don't have a character present in the scene doesn't mean you can't interact with the player if you like. I would be upset if someone pointed out something to a player that was clearly outside his character's knowledge--if, for example, I dropped someone into Cask of Amontilado and they had never read the story and didn't pick up on the names Montressa and Fortunato, I wouldn't want the other players suggesting that he should pursue the pair into the wine cellar because the one was going to murder the other and he could save the day. But in general such discussion usually adds to the game, in my experience; and most of my players understand the limits pretty well.
- It's also frequently the case that other players can become involved in what is happening more directly. If I'm running a big story for someone, I'll frequently toss character notes to other players and in essence tell them that I need someone to play this guy in this situation, this is who he is. Players like to have the opportunity to take over a non-player character for a lot of reasons. For one thing, it stretches what they can do. For another, they don't have to worry too much about what's going to happen to this guy in the long term--if he dies saving someone's life or something, that's great story and doesn't really impact "their guy". So just because you're playing Bob's story and Bill's character isn't here doesn't mean you can't get Bill involved, as long as you've got a character who is part of the situation that Bill can play.[/list:u]
So there are a lot reasons why this seperate story idea works well if done right.
Quote from: Finally, JohnAnother issue is secrets. By the model, all scenes are open information to the players (thought not the PCs). However, there is some hidden background which some players should probably know -- i.e. one PCs player might know that she is secretly a ninja-trained assassin. Which things are known to all players, some players, or no players?
Ah, this is a good one. Of course, again this can be an issue of play style. It's a lot more common nowadays for people to know things about the characters that the characters don't know. I'm in an Alyria playtest right now in which one of the characters has a special power which is stated in the storymap, but of which not even the character is aware. Part of play will probably be her discovery of this ability at a critical moment when she needs it. On the other hand, I've played in a lot of games in which there are secrets, and in which part of the fun was uncovering these secrets through play. In such games, there are a lot of techniques that you can use, depending on the situation. Passing notes works for small points--and in Multiverser we recommend passing a lot of notes anyway, as whenever a player wants his character to engage in something complex or ongoing I'd rather have it in writing so I don't get it wrong (it's a lot quicker in play for the player to write down what he wants to do and pass it to me while I'm attending to another character than for him to dictate it while I write it down and check whether I've got it right while everyone else sits waiting). Thus a passed piece of paper doesn't necessarily signal "something secret is happening" even when it would otherwise be obvious. Stepping out of the room works. I've even known people who would send some players out to pick up the pizza because they weren't supposed to know this part of the game.
Still, you have to assess why it's secret. If it's only secret because player A's character should not be allowed to act on player B's character's knowledge, that's simply resolved if the group has the maturity to make the distinction between what they know and what their character knows. If it's because the knowledge gives player A a competetive advantage in a gamist situation, then it's very much built into the game and you need to keep it secret and not hint to player A that such information exists (lest he guess it). If it's only because the surprise of the later revelation of that information will make the game more enjoyable for player A, then even player A will appreciate the necessity to hide some things from him. Thus context is very important to the issue. Why wouldn't player B's character tell player A's character anyway? There are reasons why it might be kept secret from the player; but these are not necessarily the same kinds of reasons why it would have been kept secret from the character.
Whether it matters that the players know Mary is a ninja-trained assassin will depend on many of these factors. Certainly, if Bob is a character who would kill Mary if he knew, it makes for a different kind of play one way or the other--the difference between Bob's player feigning ignorance and Bob's player truly discovering the truth through play. But if all that matters is that Mary has secret skills no other character knows, it's just a matter of good role playing not to reference those skills.
We had a D&D game in which there was a samurai and a ninja in the same (otherwise predominantly occidental) party, and the players were aware of this. A lot of the fun came from the other characters looking for ways to keep the samurai from recognizing when the ninja used his skills. It wasn't about whether the player would figure it out, but about whether the party could keep going without this underlying tension exploding into disaster.
So there are a lot of answers.
--M. J. Young
Just a few thoughts:
1. Group play and group plots
I agree with John here: the way this is formulated, you're not going to get a whole lot of group interaction at the character level. My own preference would be to lean on the group plots, giving them more "screen time" as it were. But by surrounding such play with a constellation of individual PC plots, you should be able to maintain tension and keep things relatively continuous. That is, when a big Group Plot arc finishes, there should be enough going on in the other plots that you never slack off tension as you go looking for another group plot.
As to group interaction at the player level, I say somewhere in the article --- apparently not very directly --- that I think lots of NPCs should be played by players. That way everybody's involved in every plot, but sometimes people are formally de-protagonized. That's sort of my take on the protagonizing thing: if you really want every character to have his or her special moment in the sun, not just a little event or use of a power but actually a plot all his or her own, then everyone else has to be de-protagonized. That way protagonization happens almost by default.
2. Secrets
Yeah, that's a biggie all right. I believe that it can be done by letting those with the big character secrets structure their own PC plots, such that if you don't want everyone to know (yet) that you're a ninja spy, you don't spend time with your employers in your PC plot. On the other hand, you can do so if you like, and player maturity will ensure that this character doesn't get treated as though his secret were out --- you'll just have the character's sense of mystery made relatively overt.
But for other sorts of secrets, the ones that characters find out from the world/GM, I don't see any reason they can't be allowed to get found out the usual way. As I've noted somewhere else around here, I think the Big Secret thing is very difficult to do in any RPG structure: half the time the Big Secret has the characters saying "AAAH!" and the player saying, "Yes, of course, we knew that, but I guess my guy is surprised." I don't think the Soap structure particularly helps or hurts here.
We'll find out, though: with any luck, next fall I'm going to be running Shadows in the Fog, which is all about secrets, in a soap structure.
----
Many thanks for the comments and suggestions, one and all.
As to your comments, Ron:
Quote from: Ron EdwardsDon't get me wrong - the essence of this post is that I agree with every word you've presented.
I'm quoting this so that you realize I haven't missed it; my comments, like yours, should be taken within that framework. And thanks for the vote of confidence!
QuoteI'm a little shocked that any of the material you've offered is being perceived as a revelation.
The important point here, I think, is that I'm not offering a revelation. I'm not making an argument, but proposing a somewhat different model for play. I think you're missing that, somehow.
You list 3 points I'm making:
Quote1) Protagonists engage audience attention because their concerns are understood and "felt" by us.
2) Resolution of conflicts carries an automatic message that is actually constructed by the viewer, but perceived as external (which is to say, intrinsic to the story).
3) Pacing how information and events are delivered to maximize both of the above is the heart of composing a story.[/list:u]
All of these were assumptions for me, as I think they are for most readers. If any of these were not true, then of course the whole thing is not going to work. But I'm not proposing these things as new, by any means.
I think you're skimming, or transposing the model before you really consider it. The example suggests this:
QuoteSuperhero comics are soap operas - always have been, always will be....Many early supplements and scenarios for Champions were essentially "build your own soap with this, this and this" toolkits.
I utterly disagree, I'm afraid. Superhero comics are continuing stories with lots of characters and subplots. That's
not the same as a soap. When I say Soap Opera, I
mean soap opera. Don't transpose to another genre until you've considered the original carefully.
What I'm trying to suggest here is that while there are a great many ways to structure a game, sometimes with literary or other non-RPG fictional models, the structure of a soap is unusual and different. I maintain that that model could be used to structure a game, with interesting effects.
The effects, I think, are:
- Near-inifinite campaign extension
- Strong individual character protagonization, usually in a personal-development sense
- Negatively, a weakened sense of group or party[/list:u]
As I said at the outset, I see most discussions of RPG campaigns pulling in two directions. There are those who like the long-running linear or arc model, a la D&D in the first case and Lord of the Rings in the second. There are those who like the episodic model, in which each episode or session has a discrete arc. And there are those who like the short, discrete arc model; this has been strong in Narrativist discussions.
Specifically, there have been many discussions of the long campaign as an unfortunate myth, something to get away from, a legacy of the "bad old days" of D&D. But I maintain that there is something attractive about the very long campaign, the one that just goes on and on. The problem is that D&D-type games are quite linear, and it's very difficult to shift one's meta-game priorities to an emphasis on story or arc within that structure. That is, it's hard to do the Nar-thing of emphasizing story-arc from a meta-perspective when the game is resolutely linear or serial.
So I think soaps afford a way to solve this problem for people who want to solve it. Let me repeat that: the only point of the model is for people who want a very long campaign that nevertheless constantly emphasizes story-arcs and their completions.
So why aren't superhero comics soaps? Because the structure of the soap episode or week is based on fast-cutting among numerous not-terribly-related plots, with constant shifts of emphasis. My reading of superhero comics is that you have several long-running stories, and then this issue some particular thing comes to a head and leads to this issue's big conflict. There is no single big conflict in most soaps. When such things happen, as with a big wedding for example, it's (1) very unusual, and (2) random as to who the emphasized characters are. It's as though you were to pick up a Spider-Man comic and have no idea whether he's even going to appear for more than a frame or two.
In addition, when the big fight scene begins in a comic book, you don't immediately cut away to deal with eight other plots, before coming back to the first punch. Then, once you've had a few punches, you don't again cut away to more other plots. Most of all, it's clear in a comic that the big conflict for the issue is the big conflict. If you were to cut to other plots, it's just to keep them warm on the back-burner. In a soap, the levels of emphasis are kept within very narrow ranges, such that the big thing going on this week isn't really all that much bigger than another plot going on; this keeps the fans of every plot gripped, and also sucks them into every plot.
I hope this helps. It may be that you run your games this way, Ron; I know that you manage to run quite lengthy Sorcerer campaigns. I do hear a lot of folks saying, though, that Narrativist-type campaigns tend to be short (usually followed up by a remark that this is all to the good). I'm just proposing a way to structure a pretty much Nar campaign such that it naturally tends to go on forever.
Hi Chris,
Agreed on all principle-based counts.
Regarding my most recent experience along these lines, our Hero Wars game essentially demanded that it continue from our original 10-ish session run into a ... geez, what was it, well anyway, really long game. It partly corroborates your point especially well, because it was not the unfinished nature of the original 10-ish sessions that led to the continuance, but precisely because we'd hit a satisfying conclusion that led to new things. Not a precise model for your points, but a little bit anyway - definitely not a single ever-expanding plot over the whole course of things.
As for the superhero issue, I do not agree with you, but I'm willing to back off on it unless we want to take it to specific titles. My view is that the perceived "continuing" nature of most of the titles are a bit of an illusion, with the reality being frequent recycling, episodic stories with far less textual continuity among them than most fans like to perceive. But again, it depends on the title in question, and the publication period in question.
One thing that's cropped up a bit is the concern about the various internal stories' independence, most especially the idea that player-characters would not be directly interacting. I think that relationship-based character design can go a long way toward addressing the concern, especially those with "semi-NPC" attached-characters, as in Hero Wars, Trollbabe, and (if I understand correctly) Exalted. Therefore a player can be active in a scene featuring someone else's player-character via an "extension" of his or her character who doesn't exist mechanically except as an ability or term on that character's sheet.
In Trollbabe particularly, relationship-characters defined as Rivals or Enemies play a role that I haven't seen before in role-playing games. Their actions and rolls are player-handled, their attitudes and motives are GM-handled, and their story-role emerges from the two. This role is (a) often catalytic or complicating, introducing a lot of adversity for the protagonist, and (b) often carried out in scenes that do not include the player-character in question but do include other player-characters.
Best,
Ron
Ron,
Thanks for the comments. I'll reread Trollbabe from this perspective.
Still,
Quote from: Ron EdwardsAs for the superhero issue, I do not agree with you, but I'm willing to back off on it unless we want to take it to specific titles. My view is that the perceived "continuing" nature of most of the titles are a bit of an illusion, with the reality being frequent recycling, episodic stories with far less textual continuity among them than most fans like to perceive. But again, it depends on the title in question, and the publication period in question.
I agree with your description of superhero comics, so I don't think we need to get into titles. I just don't think that (1) illusionary continuance, and (2) episodic stories, have very much to do with soaps. Soaps are (1) genuinely continuing, and (2) not at all episodic.
The latter is precisely my point, really: I'm trying to formulate a session structure that is
not episodic, without at the same time falling into the purely linear
D&D model (which I find unsatisfactory for character or premise exploration).
Either we're on the same page here, or you're misunderstanding what I mean by a soap. I'm honestly not sure which.
Hi Chris,
I can't say without genuine telepathy, but I think I understand your points pretty well. My input on this thread hasn't been to refute any of them, but rather to express my shock at the response posts.
Furthermore, I am very very sorry for introducing the superhero issue at all, because it was intended as a supportive point, and has turned out to be a point of contention. If I'd been clear about which title, which time period, and which creators I had in mind, then I think you'd have accepted it as a valid example. However, rather than do that, I'm beginning to think that the whole topic is too close to the heart for one or both of use to be useful. I suggest we drop it very fast.
Best,
Ron
Ron,
Okay, consider it dropped. I didn't think it was particularly contentious, really, but it does seem to be sidetracking the conversation.
So how are Luke and Laura these days?
This is good stuff, and I've been thinking about similar issues in a game I'm working on, particularly the PC plot. I have what I call a "spotlight episode" for every player character.
The attention to soap operas makes me think a lot of Joss Whedon's shows, which I've probably raved about before. They, and a few other shows recently, have managed a pretty good marriage of action and drama, like a soap with fight scenes. Whereas older shows tend to be one or the other, or there's only one well-developed character on the whole show.
With reference to the story-arc thread on Actual Play, I think the idea you're talking about here is the way to do story arcs. Everyone gets one to manage.
Quote from: Matt WilsonI have what I call a "spotlight episode" for every player character.
This certainly sounds functional. In the interest of clarification, let me just point out that the structure I'm talking about ends up being a spotlight episode for every character every time. Each character gets spotlighted periodically in each session. This is where I'm talking about a difference from an episodic structure.
Quote from: clehrichThis certainly sounds functional. In the interest of clarification, let me just point out that the structure I'm talking about ends up being a spotlight episode for every character every time. Each character gets spotlighted periodically in each session. This is where I'm talking about a difference from an episodic structure.
I'll add to this. I have watched a fair bit of Buffy although not others of Joss Whedon's shows. I have also been playing in a Buffy RPG game (though it is on hold at the moment). Again, I like Buffy a lot, but it does not have soap opera structure.
- It has a single focal character. Buffy is not more important than the others dramatically, but she is the defined center. Virtually all episodes have a core plot which directly affects her, and other characters all have strong defined relationships to her.
- Each episode has a core plot, generally involving a monster of some sort. There is also a core theme which reflects this plot (for example "Hush" had a monster which steals voices and a theme of talking without communication). The characters will have all sorts of different reactions to it (often amounting to subplots), but there is a distinct issue which is the focus of a given episode. [/list:u]
On the other hand, I have never regularly watched a soap opera. Thus I am still a little unsure of how I might put it into practice. I think I am actually at a point in my current campaign where I could move to this structure fairly smoothly. However, I'm not terribly confident about how I would really sustain it. Still, I think I'll give it a shot next time. I'll post some notes when I have a chance.
Hmm. This style of play seems like it would work well to spice up Amber Diceless. The Amber universe's two courts are similar to the two families observation and I can see how the courts themselves would act as static locations around which all the plots would center. The unusual geography of the Courts of Chaos would be useful for allowing people to accidentally wander into scenes for dramatic tension.
One of the problems I had with Amber, a popular game in my gaming community, is that it gets boring- too many subplots with only one or two PCs envolved. I once waited 3 hours for a GM to get to my character, and then only for a moment. I think giving the players extra characters to play would be useful for keeping things interesting for those who are waiting their turn.
While reading the main post for this thread (which I find to be highly useful and interesting) I kept trying to think of real game examples. I think that's what was missing from the post. Soap opera style examples aren't as useful as game genre specific ones since the post already mentioned that the theme ingredient for Soaps is love story issues, while obviously this wont work for most RPGs. I can see how you were trying to keep things generic so as to apply to all kinds of games, but it leaves me grasping for good examples.
While Amber and Vampire seem perfect for this style of play, it's difficult to think of good D&D style plots for this setup, for example. It would take some serious revamping of the D&D paradigm for most players since the "party" concept is so central to the D&D style experience.
BTW, I've forwarded the main post of this thread to all of the people I know who run LARP Vampire games. I think it might help them out.
John,
Thanks. Let me know if it works, ok?
Ryan,
You know, as soon as you wrote the word Amber, I kind of smacked my forehead. While I haven't been in a campaign, I can immediately see that this game might go well with the soap thing, given the whole structure of the game. Thanks!
As to real-game examples, you're dead on there. As I think I mentioned in the first post, I hadn't actually intended to post this just yet, because, okay, I admit it, I haven't had a chance to try it yet. So it's pure theory, at this point. I don't see any reason it can't work, but who knows? So I didn't put in real-game examples because they wouldn't be: they'd be fictions invented by me to be like real games.
Looks like John might give it a shot, and maybe the Vampire LARP folks (in which case, please encourage them to discuss their experience with it!). In about 4 months, I hope to be running a game using this system, so at that point I should be able to see how it works in the flesh, as it were. And if anyone else out there in Forge-land wants to give it a whirl, let me know --- or better, post to the Actual Play forum!
Thanks again for the comments, and thanks for passing it on.
The reason I sent this to my LARP friends is because with LARPers a never ending game is a good game, which is pretty different from the way I think most table-top GMs think (though I'm not sure). The shortest ongoing LARP game I've ever seen was 3 months long, the longest ones run for years and years without stop. Plus LARP Vampire has the court setting, which is part of the reason the game lasts. No matter which characters are there, the game goes on because in a way the game is about the court itself, not the people in it. Also the simultaniety of the LARP experience is more conducive to many plots going on at once. The problem is cutting scenes for pacing and suspense. It's almost impossible in a LARP environment which tends to follow real time rather than cutting.
Part of the reason I bring this stuff up is because I think the courts of Amber and the courts of Vampire are the reason those games jump to my mind as possible venues for soap operatic gaming. The court is like the two families or the hospital or the town that the soap opera centers on and provides a framework for the tied plots and such with a known heirarchy, known rivalries and that great stuff that creates intrigue. Obviously a D&D style game could center on a fixed place, but I see it as a forced fit.
My Amber friends also like to run homebrew Dune games. I think the Dune universe of politicking political houses is another great backdrop for this style of game. Yet another court.
I'm just throwing out some ideas here. I love experimental gaming ideas like this. Always looking to expand my knowledge of the craft, as I'm sure you all are.