[d20] scene framing blues

[Loki]

Hey Folks,

I ran the 2nd of two d20 fantasy sessions tonight and had some unexpected behavior from one of my players that I think might be related to scene framing, although I'm not really sure.

These two sessions have been a departure from previous d20 fantasy games I've run with my group in that the pcs are not superpowered, there is very little combat (most contests involve skills or dialogue) and I've made an effort to make the penalty for failure and risk-taking low. For instance, being caught stealing, doesn't result in combat; slipping off a balcony tends to mean bruised pride rather than broken bones (err, hit points), etc.  I've also tried to use scene framing to speed up play and get to the good stuff.

The last session ended with the pcs finishing a successful nighttime burglary. They are entertainers/petty thieves and at until this point the exact location of where they sleep had been undefined. Since they all hang around a local inn, I put forth that maybe they sleep there in the common room. So I began the scene at the inn.

One of my players objected, wanting to know why the pcs didn't have their own home. I said I thought they were broke, alcoholic, part-time petty criminals who weren't into that kind of long-term thinking. He made a good argument for having a room, so I said okay, you can have an apartment. Then he proposed a wagon parked with the rest of their performing troupe (a kind of mobile theater group). I said that a wagon was fine with me, and the player wanted assurances that the other performers would make sure no one broke into their wagon while they were out. I agreed, and said they could even have a lock on their wagon--and I said that I would consider the wagon inviolable (like their personal possessions) and wouldn't spring anything on them like a robbery, etc. So we ended up starting the scene in the wagon.

The entire conversation was semi-confrontational, but I couldn't figure out why, since I was agreeing to everything the player proposed. Later in the evening something similar happened with regard to an npc. The pcs had been hired to steal a locked chest, but after they'd got their hands on it, the valuable item inside the chest that their employer was interested in happened to not have been inside (and he'd not told them the details for fear they'd realize he was not paying them enough--I was going for a "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels" crime farce feel).

The pc and the npc employer were negotiating a second burglary, when the player began a line of questioning that seemed to be about the plausibility of the plot, as in "how is it that you [the npc] knew the item was kept there, but didn't know it was removed from time to time?" or "why on earth would anyone keep X in a box and not take it out ever"--I'm paraphrasing, but along those lines. I got the feeling we were in a contest of wills over the 'reality' of the game, so I took a break.

When I came back, the group had resolved to accept the npcs terms for a 2nd burglary, but it occurred to me that they were accepting because of a meta-game thought that if they didn't, I wouldn't be able to continue the game. When I told them their characters could do whatever they wanted, the player I've been referring to admitted that yes, that was why he agreed to the deal, and in light of what I'd said, his character would reject the deal. I think this might be relevant--a control issue where since the player felt as though he couldn't reject the deal, he would attack the plausibility of the plot, etc. I'm not sure, but that's my intuition.

The final bit of strangeness occurred when the pcs wanted to question a certain cab driver (horse-n-carriage kind) they'd seen in connection with their employer. The pcs knew the npc, and knew where to find him in the evening, so I suggested we just start the next scene in the evening at that location. The player I've been referring to objected, and it seemed as though he wanted to have a scene before that, during the day, but we never managed to get out of him what the activity was he wanted his character to pursue. Because I'd already had some uncomfortable wrangling with him earlier, I let the players work it out. It took nearly 45 minutes for the group to finally resolve to have the scene in the evening, and I still have no idea whether the player in question wanted time to weigh his pcs options, or if he had another scene in mind.

I don't know why, but I think that the behavior has something to do with the new elements in the game, with scene framing being the most "new" and possibly jarring. I can't put my finger on why, but it seems to have a common thread--a reluctance to take a risk with the character. I think it may be a lack of trust with me as the GM, since the scene framing gives me the power to make assumptions about a pc that in a more traditional d20 game (read: hack and slash) are fatal.

Consider: in a more trad d20 dungeon crawl, a GM tends to punish weakness, carelessness (check *every* door for traps), etc... so framing a scene where the pcs aren't in an optimal defensive posture can be freaky. For instance, in that environment, a group of thieves who go to sleep in the common room of the inn are likely to wake up captured, killed, etc.

What do you guys think about all this? Just me venting (it is a little, but I felt more bemused than upset at the time)? Are there suggestions/strategies for helping this player be more trusting? Is it another issue?

Your help is appreciated.

[hix]

From what you've written, it seems like the transition in play-style is  making people uncomfortable about where things will end up.

Specifically, negotiating the existence of the wagon seems to be exactly what scene framing is about – making sure that everyone is comfortable with where the next scene CUT's TO:

As long as you weren't defensive when negotiating with the players (and it reads like you weren't), a few more instances like that should help them adjust and buy-in to a more relaxed approach.

The cab driver ('I want to insert a scene before this, but I don't know what') oddness could have a simple solution. You just make it a house rule that players can retro-actively declare what they were doing in the down-time. So if it came up, the player could totally say "Of course I bought silver slingshot pellets before I went to visit the lycanthrope cab driver'. For instance.

If you wanted to tie it to some aspect of D&D, you could give players 1 retro-active fact per level.

Personally, I think it might be best to just to keep reinforcing that this game isn't about screwing the players over.

Try subverting well-established 'defensive patterns'. For instance, rather than getting them to set up a list of who 'goes on watch for the night, and in what order', get the person with the highest Spot or Listen to make a roll. If they succeed, they get the situation described to them and then they can select who was on duty. If they fail, they just get to select someone with no information.

Hope that helps. Game sounds like fun.

Cheers,
Steve.

[Loki]

Try subverting well-established 'defensive patterns'. For instance, rather than getting them to set up a list of who 'goes on watch for the night, and in what order', get the person with the highest Spot or Listen to make a roll. If they succeed, they get the situation described to them and then they can select who was on duty. If they fail, they just get to select someone with no information.

Wow, I really like this approach a lot. Thanks for the suggestion.

Regarding the "of course I bought silver pellets..." I also really like that. I prefer it when my players get involved in the narrative (we've been experimenting with shared narrative, most recently in Great Ork Gods) because it gives me so much material. Any suggestions on how to introduce that idea? I don't think I need to tie it to levels, or other d20 constructs. As an aside, I'm actually finding the d20 rules to be getting in the way--especially when combat occurs.

There have been two "combats" if you can call them that. One was when a guard dog attacked one of the pcs. He criticalled it with his quarterstaff and it ran away, dazed. The other combat was last night. One of the pcs surprised a group of kidnappers in mid-kidnap--he won initiative, criticalled one (killing him) and the rest fled (2 crits... maybe I need to check that die ;-) ). The strange thing is that the game feels very "flowing" until combat occurs; then the extremely structured combat system kicks in and suddenly the game loses a lot of it's liveliness. I think it's because the structure is so exact, that the players lose a lot of their ability to make up actions and experiment. Or this could be a function of combat being scary and usually deadly in 3e, and part of the adjustment process you noted.

[Andrew Norris]

Hello, Loki,

I had a similar situation in a D20Modern campaign I was running. We found that in practice the players rarely looked at their character sheets except during combat, and more than once a lively session filled with personality clashes ground to a halt when combat started.

The other issue I had was that players hadwidely differing comfort levels towards applying Director stance. So I introduced a Drama/Plot Point mechanism that seemed to encourage them quite a bit. (For a lot of people, Director stance feels like cheating at first -- if they have to pay for the opportunity using a limited metagame resource, it's legitimized, and they may actually use it more often than when it was free.) After a session or two, this particular mechanic was pretty much the only rule anyone used. (Proper scene framing and director stance was used to set up guaranteed success -- an ambush, say -- for those situations when combat might have happened.)

In our particular game, we ended up migrating from D20 to FATE (//www.faterpg.com), using the Fate/Fudge point side of the system to expand the Plot Point mechanism above into a full-fledged subsystem of rules, and simplifying combat as well. Something like HeroQuest might have worked well, also.

I'm not saying that you should necessarily switch systems, but my experiences echoed yours in that 90% of our play was covered by no D20 rules at all, and the bit that was didn't play out in a way we liked.

[ADGBoss]

I think the first thing I would do is spend some out of game time casually talking about your philosophy as GM and settling any worries they have with regard to the "the PC's are gettin screwed" attitude.  The more you earn their trust in and out of game, the easier new experiments will be.

As far as the D20 Combat system. Indeed it can be structured and can be a real drain on continuity especially if there are many feats, spells, etc involved.  However, a couple ideas to keep the flow of the game going are :

USe a "Power Initiative" rule where a PC can accept maybe up to half their level in negatives on all their rolls during a combat event to gain that many points of Initiative, to go quicker etc.

Fudge Distance: Double their normal movement or allow them to move before and after their actions, though this negates some benefits to a few of the feats.

Make MOOKS be MOOKS ie they should provide a danger while they are alive but you can make them 1 solid hit kills.


Sean
AzDGBoss

[John Kim]

I don't know why, but I think that the behavior has something to do with the new elements in the game, with scene framing being the most "new" and possibly jarring. I can't put my finger on why, but it seems to have a common thread--a reluctance to take a risk with the character. I think it may be a lack of trust with me as the GM, since the scene framing gives me the power to make assumptions about a pc that in a more traditional d20 game (read: hack and slash) are fatal.  

I'm not sure I understand what you mean.  Nearly all tabletop games have some sort of scene framing in the general sense (i.e. they don't play through every bit of time).  So it's not "scene framing" per se that's different, but rather a different way of scene framing.  You seem to be trying for a means of scene framing which has more GM control.  

In my experience, scene framing in traditional games is usually done only by consensus.  For example, the GM asks "Does anyone have anything important they want to do before nightfall?"  If anyone wants to play through a scene earlier, they have that option.  This is what I generally follow.  To keep things moving along, I generally work by assuming that the PCs are highly competant.  i.e. If we skim over time, the PCs generally succeed at what they were doing -- such that playing it out in detail gives them no benefit.  

Consider: in a more trad d20 dungeon crawl, a GM tends to punish weakness, carelessness (check *every* door for traps), etc... so framing a scene where the pcs aren't in an optimal defensive posture can be freaky. For instance, in that environment, a group of thieves who go to sleep in the common room of the inn are likely to wake up captured, killed, etc.  

Well, for comparison, why did you have a scene which was at the middle of the night while the PCs were sleeping?  In my experience, it is not the threat of death that players generally dislike, but rather the lack of control.  For example, they are typically fine with a threat of death if it is one which they chose.

[Loki]

John,

I think you're on to something with regard to scene framing and consensus, but there is an additional type of scene traditionally: the surprise scene. In the fictional dungeon crawl I mentioned, the GM and the players decide "okay our next scene is opening the door" or else the GM decides "well, before you open the door, X surprise scene happens". My gut feeling is that the player was guarding against the latter, due to a lack of trust.

In other words, when I asked if it was alright to start the next scene with the group waking up after having slept on the floor of the inn, his spidey sense was warning him about a situation where a "surprise scene" could be a real bummer for his character.

However, I'm not convinced that was the reason for the behavior. Like I said in my original post, I don't know why--I just have this gut feeling about it.

Well, for comparison, why did you have a scene which was at the middle of the night while the PCs were sleeping? In my experience, it is not the threat of death that players generally dislike, but rather the lack of control. For example, they are typically fine with a threat of death if it is one which they chose.

Looking over my post, I can see the confusion--I didn't actually have a scene in the middle of the night while the PCs were sleeping, I asked them where we should have the scene of them waking up the next day. Which actually points out a mistake in framing on my part: scenes should be framed at a meaningful point, and I think I erred in merely starting with "okay you wake up the next day". Better to have started with something of substance. In retrospect, that may be why the spidey-sense went off: why else would the GM be asking where we are sleeping if he's not calling for a scene with us asleep?

[John Kim]

I think you're on to something with regard to scene framing and consensus, but there is an additional type of scene traditionally: the surprise scene. In the fictional dungeon crawl I mentioned, the GM and the players decide "okay our next scene is opening the door" or else the GM decides "well, before you open the door, X surprise scene happens". My gut feeling is that the player was guarding against the latter, due to a lack of trust.  

I think you're getting yourself into trouble a bit with the phrase "lack of trust" here, because that it phrased as a purely negative thing.  But traditionally the GM is the source of challenges to be overcome.  Thus, if they expect you to spring something on them, it may not be that they think badly of you as a person or GM, and that you are failing their trust.  Rather, they simply expect you to come up with stuff which is adverse to their PCs, and they in turn will try to overcome these.  

And that's a workable approach.  In my experienced, a "surprise scene" from the GM is handled the same way as a scene requested by a player -- i.e. it needs to be openly requested and anyone else can request establishing something before it.  The GM needs to first ask the players to know what they are doing.  If it is during the night, for example, she needs to first ask them what sort of watches they are setting up and what other precautions are being taken.  By jumping past that, you are seizing more control for yourself as GM (compared to the previous approach).  It is that loss of control which is disturbing.  

Well, for comparison, why did you have a scene which was at the middle of the night while the PCs were sleeping? In my experience, it is not the threat of death that players generally dislike, but rather the lack of control. For example, they are typically fine with a threat of death if it is one which they chose.

Looking over my post, I can see the confusion--I didn't actually have a scene in the middle of the night while the PCs were sleeping, I asked them where we should have the scene of them waking up the next day. Which actually points out a mistake in framing on my part: scenes should be framed at a meaningful point, and I think I erred in merely starting with "okay you wake up the next day". Better to have started with something of substance. In retrospect, that may be why the spidey-sense went off: why else would the GM be asking where we are sleeping if he's not calling for a scene with us asleep?

I think the problem is more that the players are relying on "spidey-sense" in the first place.  i.e. It sounds like they don't have any idea where you're going with these scenes.  I would prescribe more information to them, so if you cut to the next scene they know why.  The idea is that if they know where things are headed, they are more able to roll with whatever the scene is.  So out of curiosity, why did you have a scene waking up the next day?

[Loki]

Hmm. Why I wanted a scene after they woke up is a good question. I wanted a scene with the pcs meeting their employer to exchange stolen goods. Instead I said something along the lines of "okay, the next thing I can think of is to meet with EmployerNPC. you guys wake up on the floor of the inn."

John, I think you've hit the nail on the head regarding the "surprise scene", and it certainly describes the style of game I have run in the past with these players. Typically the GM asks all kinds of questions about pc readiness, then springs the surprise. That's the kind of play I'm trying to get away from--I think I'm just not doing a good job of doing it.

When I talk about GM trust, what I mean is that my players are still in the mode where they need to "play defensively" in case I decide to spring a surprise on them, and don't feel free to take risks with their characters and scenes. I'm trying to get to a style of play where the players and the GM both contribute to the story more actively, by letting players call for scenes, and discussing the scene that I want to have with the players, without concern for whether it's going to ruin the surprise.

An example of the kind of play I'm trying to encourage was when the pcs wanted to borrow a horse from their employer's stablehand. One of the players suggested that his character, who is a lothario, might have slept with the stablehand one drunken night in his past. The next thing I know I'm running a scene where the pc is trying to sweet talk the stablehand without committing to another "date", and the rest of the pcs are busy trying to trip him up so he ends up having to sleep with her again. None of it (including trying to get a horse) was my idea--and the players really got into the scene on their own, adding details about the night in question, their own pcs' histories with the stablehand, etc. It was great.

It's clear to me that I haven't done enough thinking about my goals with framing (and if framing is really the issue here), and definitely haven't made them clear to my players. In retrospect, the way I'd have called for the scene waking up in the inn (if I could do it over) would've been:

"I'd like to have a scene with the pcs meeting their employer. Since he knows they hang out at the bar, any objection to starting the scene with the 5 of you sitting around a table in the back?"

Does my immediate goal (more active player role in framing) make sense? Are there any concepts or techniques that bear mentioning? I really appreciate the help.

[John Kim]

When I talk about GM trust, what I mean is that my players are still in the mode where they need to "play defensively" in case I decide to spring a surprise on them, and don't feel free to take risks with their characters and scenes. I'm trying to get to a style of play where the players and the GM both contribute to the story more actively, by letting players call for scenes, and discussing the scene that I want to have with the players, without concern for whether it's going to ruin the surprise.  

My best recommendation for this is to give the players more information, whether in-character or out-of-character or both.  For example, if the PCs have an enemy, the players should know who it is, what her resources are, and perhaps how she intends to strike at the PCs.  Now, as a caveat, this limits the genre in a sense.  For example, a murder mystery will tend to feel more like Columbo or Dial M for Murder, where the audience knows how the murder was carried out and the interest is in how the murderer will be caught rather than who he is.  However, having the information is vital to the players' confidence in declaring and setting scenes.  

An option (although not necessary) is if the PCs are initiators of the action rather than reacting to NPCs.  i.e. Rather than being hired for a job by an NPC, they choose for themselves to rob a joint.  This requires skill during character creation and setup, though, to get a group of PCs who will drive their own action.  

It can also be fine to go with reluctant heroes, though.  The players can still have control via how the conflict goes about rather than what the conflict is.  In this case, though, you as GM should be very clear about the hook.  Some GMs really tend to apologetically tiptoe about getting to the hook, but I would say it's better to just get it out in the open quickly.  Just be flexible in how the PCs react to it.  

In retrospect, the way I'd have called for the scene waking up in the inn (if I could do it over) would've been:

"I'd like to have a scene with the pcs meeting their employer. Since he knows they hang out at the bar, any objection to starting the scene with the 5 of you sitting around a table in the back?"

Does my immediate goal (more active player role in framing) make sense? Are there any concepts or techniques that bear mentioning? I really appreciate the help.  

That sounds pretty good to me.  I don't think you should agonize too much over individual choices.  Even if you have a perfect plan, mistakes will happen and frequently.  I would look more at the general context and patterns of play.

[Loki]

Thanks to everyone for your advice, especially John. You've helped me get some much needed perspective.