Flashbacks & Predetermination

[Darcy Burgess]

I'm working on a one-shot Godlike adventure as a "going away" present for a friend who's jetting off to Japan for a year.  I'd like to structure the adventure as a series of flashbacks that allow the story to unfold -- a (typically) cinematic technique.

However, film directors don't have to worry about predetermining their actors' actions, whereas that's a major concern for me.

Has anyone ever tried this technique before?  Any suggestions on how to pull it off successfully, or pitfalls to look out for?  Also, what techniques have you used to successfully convey the "flashback shift" for the players?  I'd like to use something elegant as opposed to the Klunky "ok, so now we're back at the mission briefing"

Any help is appreciated.

[Nathaniel]

You'd have a sort of solid "present" that you'd start with correct?

Obviously, anything in the flash backs has to fit with the present-- or rather has to arrive at fitting with the present before the flashbacks catch up to the present.

The less you define in the present the less there is to be contradictory in the flashbacks.

This might be an optimal time to apply the theory surrounding the Lumpley Principle.

"System (including but not limited to 'the rules') is defined as the means by which the group agrees to imagined events during play."

Every statement made is a proposition to the group as to whether or not to accept it as authoritative and credible in the shared imaginative space.  So inside the system you need to include a mechanism (which may be purely social) to ensure that statements that are contradictory to the present are not accepted as credible.  Or, at the very least, you accept only those statements which can be transformed to become consistent with that which is defined in the present.

Another useful concept for this situation would be Intuitive Continuity:

"A method of preparing role-playing sessions in which the GM uses the players' interests and actions during initial play to construct the back-story of the scenario retroactively. The term was first presented in the game Underworld."

Don't define the story in advance.  Define as little as possible in the "present" and construct the story from the player's input as the flashbacks unfold.  Only what has been stated and accepted as credible in the shared imaginative space is set.  Nothing else.  If the players don't know it yet, it may or may not be.  Don't "write" the story for something like this.  Grow it organically as you proceed.

I hope that was helpful.

Nathaniel

[jdagna]

The best use of flashbacks I've ever done was a game in which we used them to determine present facts.  

In one scene, a woman enters the room.  One of the players says "I want my character and her to have had a romantic relationship.  Let's see how it ended."  Flashback time.  We did some role-playing in a couple of scenes until we felt like we knew how the relationship ended - they drifted away due to different interests and job opportunities.  Back to the present: the woman says "Oh, John... it's..."  "Been a while, yeah.  I'm glad to see you again, Jane." And the scene progressed from there.

In another scene, I wanted a villain with a grudge.  So we flashed back to a hostage situation, in which I didn't even define whether the villain was present or not.  The players did well, and nobody died except the bad guys.  Back to the present: "You killed my brother! Now you will pay!"  If a hostage had died, that might have been the brother, or if a bad guy had survived, I might have said "You've seen this guy before..."

This essentially works using Nathaniel's advice - you don't establish things up front and let the flashbacks do the work.  However, we did start each flashback with a premise (an ended relationship, a villain with a grudge) and then worked the flashback until we ended with the premise.  I also left information inthe flashback's quite vague, for example, not defining who the villain was in the hostage scene so that no matter how it ended, I could give him some sort of grudge.

This game was also for a one-shot, so there wasn't a need for a lot of long-term continuity, which might have been difficult to achieve.  But it allowed us to take a few characters and very quickly flesh out their history, jumping from one key moment to the next and without having to stop and have players write their own little biographies ahead of time.

Also, definitely let players request their own flashbacks and set their own premises for them.  Using the information obtained in the flashback directly in the scene that it interrupted helped to avoid overly-klunky transitions.  The present scene became just an extension of the conflict in the flashback.  (Though I admit to using phrases like "OK, back in the present...").

I would advise against training-montage flashbacks (but I hate those in movies too).  A flashback should have a clear conflict that ties directly into the present, otherwise it doesn't need to be there (in RPGs and in other media).

[Darcy Burgess]

Cool thanks for the input.

Indeed, as currently structured, we start in the present, and flashback to the events that led us there.

However, I am specifically restricted to a one-shot -- there isn't any room to freeform (too much) and fall back on the position that "we'll just pick up where we left off next week".  Perhaps the best way to tackle this is to give you as much detail as is reasonable, and let you comment on how you'd script each "present" scene.  Unfortunately, the "flashbacks" aren't open for debate.

Spoilers ahead...




















Basic Concept: PCs are ordinary marines, engaged in MacArthur's "island hopping" campaign.  Their division has limited access to Talents (aka superheroes) to help in their endeavour.  One of the NPCs is a talent with the ability to manipulate luck for himself and others -- the catch is that his talent is "powered" by other people insulting him.  Think of Corporal Uppham from Private Ryan, but without any redeeming social qualities and a really nasal voice.

Present scene: PC's CO is being chewed out by upper brass for "loss of resources", as he defends his decisions, we flash back to various scenes that retell the story.  This is the standard "flashforward" scene (below), as each one picks up where this one left off.  Interspersed in this scene is the tale of the character's current big conflict.  The "are" (or very recently were) cut off in a botched behind-the-lines raid on Guam.  I'm thinking of one or two combat rounds per flashforward.

Scene 1: establish relationships between characters.  Also, Uppham's origin story.  Baseball game, where the interaction is primarily social.  Event comes to a close as Uppham gets beaned by a line drive just after someone cracks a joke at his expense.

Flashforward

Scene 2: Guadalcanal.  Uppham was supposed to go out on an airborne reconnaisance mission, but came down with really bad food poisoning.  The plane is shot down, and the PCs are tasked with a patrol to the crash site.

Flashforward

Scene 3:  Guam.  The PCs and Uppham are stationed on the USMC's base on Guam.  A social, pass-the-time scenario -- playing cards or somesuch.  They're on sentry duty in a little bunker.  When one of them gets the urge to take a leak, they hear a "click" in the underbrush (rifle hammer dropping on a dud round).  They try to flush out the sniper, and eventually perpetuate a "banzai" charge.  Here's the catch: when the enemy charges the position, he comes down the same route that the PC used to get to the latrine.  But the bad guy steps on a mine.  Uppham is of course, with the PCs.

Flashforward.  In this scene, we specifically find out that the CO suspects something and has Uppham tested.

Scene 4: Guam debacle.  The lead-in to the "big payoff".  Uppham, the PCs and another NPC talent (teleporter) pop behind an enemy installation to help with a difficult advance.  The teleporter's talent frazzles everyone, so they're caught flat-footed.  The only scripted action is that the teleporter gets shot dead.  We now flash "up" through the previously-fought combat rounds, and then continue the scene.

So, my main goals are:
1) entertain the players with a good mix of social and action scenes
2) pique their interest as to how the story ends
3) surprise them a bit with the nature of Uppham's talent ability, and how they're required to make it work
4) have one heck of a blow-out final scene to warrant the CO's dressing down by the brass

[John Uckele]

Have you seen Hero? That's immediately what I think of. You have a convrosation in the present, and more and more of what is going on NOW is reavealed as you go through the past (and in the case of Hero, maybe more than once).

[Darcy Burgess]

unfortunately, I haven't been able to see any movies except on DVD for about 2 months now...

newborn baby tends to do that though... :)

I'm looking forward to Hero when it comes out for rental, though!

[neelk]

Has anyone ever tried this technique before?  Any suggestions on how to pull it off successfully, or pitfalls to look out for?  Also, what techniques have you used to successfully convey the "flashback shift" for the players?  I'd like to use something elegant as opposed to the Klunky "ok, so now we're back at the mission briefing"

Yes, and it's a lot of fun.

I'll suggest that you DO determine what happens "now" before playing out the "past". The reason is that having a solid idea of the future acts as a constraint on what can happen in the past, and it's fun to try and figure out how to recover once things happen in the past that are hard to reconcile with the present. This can crash and burn, of course, when you have an irreconcilable past and present, but that risk is part of the fun of the game -- inventing coincidences and retcons to make past and present consistent is fun (as the most casual glance at any superhero web forum will reveal).  You need players who are willing to play along, and are willing to do some of the work of "history" invention with you in a collaborative style.

Also, what Nathaniel suggests works too! There are multiple kinds of flashbacks.

[M Jason Parent]

The only time I've used flashbacks really actively in play was based on an old Vampire: the Masquerade module... the flashbacks set the scene for the present, they were very short sequences that gave a good VIEW of how things got to where they are, but without giving the players the direct ability to mess with the present timeline in the flashbacks.

I used this system in the Vampire module in question as well as later in a D&D game about exploring ancient ruins while the flashbacks handled the rise and fall of a necromantic empire that had finally collapsed on the same location.

[teucer]

You'd have a sort of solid "present" that you'd start with correct?

Obviously, anything in the flash backs has to fit with the present-- or rather has to arrive at fitting with the present before the flashbacks catch up to the present.

I would suggest that this is not actually necessary.

Imagine, for example, if moments in the "present" only occur near the start of the game, while the rest is all flashbacks. Because of the "past" nature of the flashbacks, suddenly jumping ahead to the next truely exciting moment is completely reasonable. Now suppose that by the end of the game session the "present" you began with was completely impossible. Maybe a major character who was in the "present" dies, for instance. What does this say about the "present"? Or about the "past"?

This would dramatically affect the premise of your session, and it would be wise to know that you were planning this from the very beginning (though the players wouldn't need to know). The premise needs to be consistent; the plot doesn't.

I actually wrote a story once that was very much like this. A character began recounting an experience, which was retold as a third-person flashback forming the bulk of the story. The story ended with the end of the flashback and the death of the character who had earlier been portrayed as the one narrating the events of the flashback. The reason it wound up that way is that when I write fiction, I do not try to steer my characters; they take on a life of their own. I didn't feel I could force the flashback to keep the protagonist alive, so when he died I ended the story rather than try to retcon it with the beginning.

[Troy_Costisick]

Heya,

If I had one and only one movie to recomend as inspiration fodder for a flashback campaign, "Memento" would be it.  The begining of the movie starts with the end.  And then every 10-20 minute sequence after that works bakcwards from the starting point of the movie- which really was the resolution of the plot.

This might work for you.  Start your PCs with the resolution of the campaign and then work backwards in time to show them how they all ended up in that situation.  

Peace,

-Troy Costisick

[Rob MacDougall]

If you can get a hold of the No Press Anthology put together by a number of Forge regulars, you'll enjoy "Snowball", which is a variant of The Pool designed specifically for playing out stories backwards, a la Memento.

See http://www.nopress.net/ for details.

[Darcy Burgess]

hi all.

sorry that i've been absent from this thread for so long -- the game has come and gone (successfully, i think).   i need to clear up a couple of things with ArcDream (the scenario may end up as a submission for an upcoming contest, so i don't want to 'spill all the beans').  however, if they're not going to do another contest i can post my game prep notes to the web, if anyone is interested.

i will also eventually get around to posting a session report over in actual play.

thanks for all of the excellent input -- and yeah, Memento rocks.  big time.

with regards to disconnect with plotline.  I can see where that could work really well in fiction.  it also has potential in one-shot scenario work -- where we're going into the twilight zone as it were.

it even has potential in campaign-structured environments (in your example, the "speaker" might not have been who we thought he was, perhaps it was in fact the chameleonic assassin who killed the presumed speaker).

however, that plays against what your drive was -- not worrying about retcon et al.

it's nice to see this thread active again.