[Traveller] Spotlighting problems.

[Ron Edwards]

Cool!

Were there differences in how the actual people looked at one another, gave one another facial or verbal cues (a muttered "Yay-uh!" or "That's what she'd do, all right"), between this session and the previous?

How about cues you used regarding what interested them? Could you tell which offerings of yours were, to introduce a metaphor, stinky vs. yummy?

Overall, actually, what matters is the "happy now" part. I hope you'll forgive me for continuing to dig for details - but it's just this sort of thing that can help others when they arrive with similar issues and get directed to this thread.

Again, no rush.

Best,
Ron

[Loki]

Me: "Right then, you're in a meeting to discuss what to do next."
Pete: "Ok, does everyone agree with the plan?"
Ant: "Er, what was the plan again."
Brief discussion while we remember the salient points of the plan (contact the second most powerful group by tight beam radio, offer to exchange Medical technology for things the PCs need).
Ant (back in character): "Ah yes, why is it we're contacting the second most powerful group? Surely we should deal with the best."
Pete: "We don't want to disrupt their culture too much. If we give extra power to the most powerful we could unbalance things."
Ant: "That sounds reasonable."
Pete: "Baron, could I ask you to front our diplomatic contacts with the aliens."
Ant: "Yes, of course, that would be appropriate. Miss Farquar I'll need you to advise me from behind the scenes, and see if you can pick up on anything more subtle from their words or actions."
Gilli: "Yes, of course Baron, I'd be happy to."

I'm glad that your OOC talk with Pete helped things (he sounds like a great player to have in a group), but I noticed reading the transcript that it all depended on Pete giving up his autonomy. Just in case he goes alpha-dog on you again/the passive characters go limp, here's an example of how you could use framing (not that I'm an expert) to get Ant and Gilli more involved.

After the discussion of the plan, start with "The representative from the SMPGP (Second Most Powerful Group on the Planet) is on screen/radio/phone and says 'Greetings Miss Farquar, we've reviewed your proposal and have the following minor additions to the medical supplies. We require a sample of the following viral agents for study...'". Naturally, the viral agents are offworld and potentially lethal if used as a weapon.

Notice how Pete was taken out of the "I'll allow you two to get involved role" and Gilli's character was thrust at the focus of the scene by starting from the presumption that a) she is the diplomat and b) would act as mediator between the SMPGP and the somewhat inexperienced Baron. That way you take the responsibility off of Pete for getting the group involved, and let him worry about phaser banks, away teams and whatever else takes up most of a Captain's day. :)

Also, by thrusting Gilli into a immediate conflict, you make it easy for her to engage her character. She can't give them the virals, so how can she manuever? Why do they want the virals? What else might they want that's less dangerous. Does she break off negotiations and go to their enemies? Does she bluff going to their enemies?

I know you've already done that scene, but you get the concept for next time...

[Jack Aidley]

Continuing on from the above (I'll respond to the above responses in another post), I'll go over a few more examples that stood out to me as exemplifying why things went better this session.

The first covers a brief section where three of the crew went out in a GCarrier to rescue the two downed pilots. There were three crew members sent out; I'm not sure here whether Pete chose to send three so one could be taken by each player or purely based on his stated in-game. Gilli took Landrey (the rescuer), Ant took Kenyon (the gun pointer) and Pete took Coogan (the pilot). The reason I find this notable is that Landrey is the highest ranking of the three. So for a scene, Gilli took the command role. Again I'm not sure whether this was deliberate or not. It often seems to me that when things are working well, nice little details like this one fall naturally out of the game. This switching of the chain of command allowed the different players to act out alternate roles and, for the first time, I found it a really convincing demonstration of the minor characters being PCs being a really positive step.

It also meant that we finally starting getting some separation of action, so I was able to cut between different events with the resultant switching of Spotlights, and upping of suspense.(In this case the arrival of jets from a third national power, The Peoples Republic, provided that alternate scene).

Going back to the minor characters again. Last session was the first time I'd introduced them as a concept and I left it entirely up to the players how they'd run them. Last session they seemed kind of hesitant with them, but this time they really took them to heart, with exchanges like:

Pete (as Captain): Mathesson, begin transmission.
Ant: Yes, sir.

What I found interesting was the way in which they assigned the crew, I had expected them to just pick up a crew member for a scene and then put them back in a pot. But this wasn't what happened. Instead they held onto the characters they started playing, taking their role whenever it turned up again, except where they already had a character in the scene.

Slightly later on, the two pilots were dragged onto the Sceptre, and then interviewed by Minty (Gilli basically took this role for herself), so she finally got some centre stage time for her main character. Towards the end of the interview I threw in another complication (an attack on the Sceptre) and was again able to cut back and forth between the two scenes (elegantly in this case, the Baron was called from one scene to the other).

In a way I see last session as a bit of a blip. Spotlighting isn't normally a problem in my games. My impression is that the problem cooks down to three main things:

1. A lack of 'threads'. The last session had no 'cutting' opportunities, so I was unable to keep the Spotlight moving. This was because the game was too linear.
2. An imbalance of power. Only the Captain had any existing authority to make substantial actions, the other players were in situation of either having to take, or be given, power. This combined badly with:
3. One character out to limit the effectiveness of another. The Captain was unimpressed with Baron, and was trying to keep him out of things. This in itself would perhaps have worked out, but on the uneven playing field it had nasty consequences.

[Jack Aidley]

Hi Ron,

Were there differences in how the actual people looked at one another, gave one another facial or verbal cues (a muttered "Yay-uh!" or "That's what she'd do, all right"), between this session and the previous?

Yes there were. Last session was very bland, Gilli was becoming bored, and Ant was quite out of it. This session they were much more animated, and we had the beginnings of 'in-jokes' forming. Little moments of play that spun off the different characters, as well as pleasure from scenes well acted, and problems well solved.

How about cues you used regarding what interested them? Could you tell which offerings of yours were, to introduce a metaphor, stinky vs. yummy?

Yes. I think so. In moments were the players were engaged (which was pretty much all of the session) I had fairly little to do, the players kept the Spotlight moving among themselves, and took actions to move the game forward. On those moments it stalled, I was generally able to interject just a few sentences of new information to get things moving again.

There were a couple of times they seemed a bit lost, particularly when I was asking for actions from the crew. Particularly Gilli - who's been roleplaying for a lot less time than the other two, and less of a science fiction knowledge base to draw on - but with a little nudging things got moving again.

Overall, actually, what matters is the "happy now" part. I hope you'll forgive me for continuing to dig for details - but it's just this sort of thing that can help others when they arrive with similar issues and get directed to this thread.

Not a problem, Ron, feel free to dig away. I'll answer as best I can.


Hi Loki,

I'm glad that your OOC talk with Pete helped things (he sounds like a great player to have in a group), but I noticed reading the transcript that it all depended on Pete giving up his autonomy. Just in case he goes alpha-dog on you again/the passive characters go limp, here's an example of how you could use framing (not that I'm an expert) to get Ant and Gilli more involved.

When possible I like to resolve these things without forcing anyones hand. If problems has continued I would almost certainly have started using techniques such as you describe to bring things back on track. As it was a quiet word with Pete did the trick (which I was fairly confident it would; I've played with Pete a fair bit before, and he GM's a game I play in weekly. He's always seemed ameniable to that kind of discussion). And I'm hoping as the game progresses I won't need to interject again.

Thanks,

Jack.

[Loki]

Man this game sounds like a lot of fun. You've got me wanting to play a SF-themed game someday...

I'd really like to hear more about how it turns out, storywise... keep us posted!

[Mike Holmes]

A lack of 'threads'. The last session had no 'cutting' opportunities, so I was unable to keep the Spotlight moving. This was because the game was too linear.

This sounds circular. You just have to make the decision to cut at some point. Do it like a director, and say, "And cut!" before another player can speak. Then frame the next scene in a similar fashion. If you don't have anything particularly, do a mood scene.

"Cut to outside the ship, the view from one of the reparibots as it looks from the side of the ship down at the planet. The swirling clouds of it's atmosphere seem somehow sinister."

Then ask a player who hasn't had much screen time what scene he wants for his character. Work it out with him. Find some conflict in that scene and play it out.

Scene framing is an attitude. It's not about appropriate openings, it's about that being the style that you're using. If you don't move to it deliberately, then you'll always continue with the "what are you doing now" style of play. Use that (or something like it as a cue). When you find yourself saying "what do you do now?" cut instead and ask someone "what scene is your character having next?".

Mike