Learning to use Scene Agendas

[TonyLB]

I'm running a play-by-post game which makes liberal use of scene agendas.  So for each major scene, I'm trying to get people to say (or, worst case, accept my judgment on) what needs to happen or be resolved in the scene.  Then we know where to start the scene, and where to end the scene.

But folks in the game (myself sometimes included) are having a hard time making the distinction between a scene agenda and the character's agenda.

So, in my more coherent moments I realize that "We need to defeat Sauron" is not a scene agenda for anything in Lord of the Rings, even if it is the unwavering agenda of the characters involved.  The scene agendas are things like "As Sam and Frodo make their way out of the Shire they know, we see more clearly how hard it is for them to undertake this quest"... yes?

If I have the general sense of the tool (and I think I do... I'm excited by the prospects) does anyone have suggestions on how I can think about it and explain it so that it stays clear in my mind and is communicated clearly to others?

[Valamir]

Try framing it like a movie story board, or a page of comic book panels.  That might get the point across that what you're talking about is what needs to happen between the time the Director says "Action" and "Cut" and not what the goals of the character are.

I'd also stress Player Agenda over Character agenda.

What do the players want to see established / accomplished in the scene?

[clehrich]

Is it necessary to see an actual clear endpoint?  The example you give, of Frodo and Sam, doesn't have an endpoint.  The issue is established, and that serves as a fundamental focus for the scene.  But there's no absolute conclusion.

I say this because your players may be having problems with having to know what has to be accomplished or completed, which may seem to break the spell and make it all seem predetermined (sort of like Calvinism).  This can be hard, and people may want to shift over to their characters so they can get the necessary divine-like distance to be able to see the spectrum.

If instead, they just need to see the general issue or point at stake, and then focus play around that, you can have them all say, "I think the point is made; let's move to the next point" and go from there.

But you'd have to provide more examples for me to know whether I've got that in any way right.  Hope it's useful.

Chris Lehrich

[jdagna]

It sounds to me like scene agenda could be best defined as "what the author (or player) intends to say through the scene" whereas the character agenda is "what the character intends to do in the scene."  You might encourage players to say "I want to show x in this scene.  My character intends do x."

This will fit exactly with what you're talking about in your Lord of the Rings example.

[TonyLB]

Is it necessary to see an actual clear endpoint?  The example you give, of Frodo and Sam, doesn't have an endpoint.  The issue is established, and that serves as a fundamental focus for the scene.  But there's no absolute conclusion.

Well, again, "endpoint" can have two different meanings... though I feel like I'm dodging the question.

Can't go wrong with LotR examples:  The players have decided that, fun as it is to chatter with Aragorn about how many meals they get each day, they'd like to get to Rivendell while there are still elves.  So they set an agenda of "Getting to Rivendell quickly becomes suddenly much more critical."

Now in one sense they know the end-point of that scene:  It ends when the journey to Rivendell is suddenly much more critical.

But in another sense they have no idea how the scene will end.  The implementation is completely free-form.  So, they've got this agenda, and Pippin's player (Pippin always furthers the agenda) says "Hey, we're on a high spot, visible for miles around... let's light a FIRE!"  Events ensue, Frodo is mortally wounded and... guess what!... only Elven magic can save him.  "We must get him to Rivendell!" and the scene is over.

Man I hope I'm making sense here.  My hope is to go into each scene agenda saying "I have no idea what the ending will be, but I'll know it when I see it".

[Matt Wilson]

Tony:

Since my PM idea didn't quite click, and since I'm at work early (damn allergies), I'm gonna try again with some ideas.

A couple questions first:

1. Who declares the agenda? Is it a group process? Do you take turns?

2. If you do take turns, does the character of the player who decided get any special focus? Is the scene about that character, more or less?

3. Who decides officially when a scene is over? Do you get consensus, or do you want to be able to be the guy who decides, and not get several emails afterward that say, "wait, wait, I wanted more"?

I can think of a couple games in addition to the one I'm working on that rely heavily on construction of scenes, and give a lot of thought to who gets to decide things about them. One is Universalis, and the other is Trollbabe. You might want to check them out if you have a few bucks to spare. Plus they're dang cool.

Is your group actually playing a LotR game? It'd be great if you posted some actual play events. What game system are you using?

[orbsmatt]

Man I hope I'm making sense here. My hope is to go into each scene agenda saying "I have no idea what the ending will be, but I'll know it when I see it".

I'm trying to understand the purpose of the scene agenda here.  If you have no idea what the ending will be, what does the scene agenda set out?  Wouldn't it be easier to just set the scene and see where it goes from there?

[clehrich]

Man I hope I'm making sense here. My hope is to go into each scene agenda saying "I have no idea what the ending will be, but I'll know it when I see it".

I'm trying to understand the purpose of the scene agenda here.  If you have no idea what the ending will be, what does the scene agenda set out?  Wouldn't it be easier to just set the scene and see where it goes from there?

If I get Tony right, the scene agenda sets out the issue or focus of the scene, as opposed to what happens.  So the issue might be, "Dave wants to propose to Sally."  But if you've ever seen a soap opera, this sort of thing doesn't just happen -- there have to be complications on the way.  So the fact that the scene sort of wants to go toward the proposal ensures that it has a point, and that the various other things that crop up add tension and don't just confuse matters.

Chris Lehrich

[orbsmatt]

Ahhh... that makes a little more sense.  I had thought that it was to determine how the scene would end, which would defeat the purpose of roleplaying.

Thanks Chris!

[TonyLB]

Yeah, pretty much what Chris said.

Part of the purpose of the scene agenda is to make sure that scenes stay focussed on the "good stuff" (as defined by the players and GM) as opposed to drifting off into stuff that would be better handled off-screen.  Still on LotR, after they get out of Moria they could have had some encounters with wolves or such on the way to Lothlorien... it's a good day's travel.  But it doesn't advance any agenda that the audience is interested in, so they skip straight to the forest, where the good bits are.

And part of the purpose is to help guide players who are acting in Author or Director stance.  It can be hard to trust other players with that sort of power, precisely because you feel they'll "ruin your scenes".  Hopefully having an agenda that people agree to, and having each player bend their story-telling toward that agenda, will help to foster that trust.

[TonyLB]

1. Who declares the agenda? Is it a group process? Do you take turns?

So far I've been saying "If you've got an agenda, declare it, if not I'll make one for you".  Which has mostly meant that I've been making them, but I think that's only because people are still getting used to the idea.  Eventually I figure I'll have to step in and say "Hold on, hold on, I want to define an agenda here too".

2. If you do take turns, does the character of the player who decided get any special focus? Is the scene about that character, more or less?

Again, at the moment, players are in individual threads so this hasn't been a bone of contention.

3. Who decides officially when a scene is over? Do you get consensus, or do you want to be able to be the guy who decides, and not get several emails afterward that say, "wait, wait, I wanted more"?

I'm going for consensus... but my hope is that the tool itself will help to make that consensus easy to achieve.

Is your group actually playing a LotR game? It'd be great if you posted some actual play events. What game system are you using?

We're in Amber, and when I reach some interim conclusions on how the mechanics I've added are working out I will certainly post.  Probably not in this thread though :-)

[TonyLB]

It sounds to me like scene agenda could be best defined as "what the author (or player) intends to say through the scene" whereas the character agenda is "what the character intends to do in the scene."  You might encourage players to say "I want to show x in this scene.  My character intends do x."

Interestingly, one of my players just started doing that before I even got a chance to suggest it.  They're way ahead of me!  Yay!

[Mike Holmes]

And part of the purpose is to help guide players who are acting in Author or Director stance.  It can be hard to trust other players with that sort of power, precisely because you feel they'll "ruin your scenes".  Hopefully having an agenda that people agree to, and having each player bend their story-telling toward that agenda, will help to foster that trust.

I guess as a sort of "training method" that it might make sense. But, as a GM who trust his players completely, it all seems quite unneccessary. I'm perfectly comfortable having this all worked out during play, and would find the agenda thing to be a lot of "playing before we play."

Yeah, just "winging it" can have times when a scene isn't quite what you want it to be. But that's just part of RPGs to an extent, and the improv nature of things. In any case, the play I'm involved in seems just fine, so I can't see what I would benefit by using such a thing as a scene agenda.

I would suggest taking off the training wheels as soon as possible. I think that, in fact, the agenda itself might be saying to the players, "Hey, I don't trust you, so I have to do this to be sure." Just trust the players, give them the power to author in obivous ways so they know that you trust them, and they'll trust you back. If they need reinforcement, say, "Go ahead, I trust you." It's really as simple as that.

That's not to say that there can't be OOC talk, like your example in the post above - if the player feels the need, that's fine. Just that there's no need to mandate it. It happens naturally and when needed.

Mike

[clehrich]

I don't agree with Mike.  This sort of thing can be used as "training wheels," but it doesn't need to be.

One way to do it well, I think, would be to have a sort of rota by which everybody has to frame scenes periodically.  Whoever frames the scene could be the main PC of the scene; since everyone gets a turn, everyone has to be the main PC periodically as well.

So let's say we've got George, Nancy, Bob, and Sarah playing.  Let's suppose for a minute that the GM-ing is also distributed, since I think this is something that such formal scene-framing would support well.  Okay, so the gang are a troop of the usual violent thugs that come up in D&D games.

First Scene: George is main PC
He declares that the focus is going to be on his recurrent problems with his sword, which is cursed and he can't get rid of it.  Sarah says she has a cool idea about this, so she's the GM for the scene.  Nancy and Bob are implicitly required to support the general focus of the scene.

Sarah has a person come running out of the woods, straight at George; this person is dressed in a nightie, and looks small and unthreatening, but is carrying a big stick.  Nancy immediately leaps out with her sword, planning to stop George from wasting this person because of his cursed sword.  Bob starts talking fast.  George, following the cue, drags out his sword and starts trying to kill the nightie-lady.

Sarah had sort of thought that it would be interesting if George did kill this person, but since he's not going to with Nancy in the way she changes her mind and has this person actually be an illusion covering a monster of some kind -- which promptly attacks Bob.

By the time the smoke clears, George has stabbed (though not killed) Nancy, the monster is dead, Bob is wounded.  George is now freaking out about how he's got to get rid of the sword, because the curse is starting to spread (as it were).

Second Scene: Nancy is main PC
Nancy declares that the issue is that she actually thinks George's sword isn't cursed at all; she thinks he is a psycho who's pretending.  She's planning to try to prove this.  George has a nifty idea about this, but since he's obviously got to be a big deal in the scene, Bob, who's wounded anyway, decides to run the scene (while his character moans in the tent).

Bob sets the scene and waits for Nancy to take the lead.  Nancy uses her thief skills to sneak into George's tent, planning to steal the sword and replace it with a perfect duplicate (using a nifty little piece of illusion magic).  George wakes up, and thinks Nancy is trying to seduce him, to which he is perfectly amenable.  Sarah hears the ensuing confusion, and drops by, and sees an unclothed George, a partly unclothed Sarah, and two matching cursed swords.  She freaks (since she actually does want George, although he doesn't want her), grabs one of the swords (which one?) and threatens to lay into them both.

By the time the dust clears, nobody knows which sword is which, everyone is on edge, sexual tension is riding rather high, and poor old Bob is wondering what the hell is happening (since he can only hear the commotion from his tent).

....

And so on.  Note that these are stupid examples, pulled out of my butt (you knew they stank  :-p  ).

One of the effects of this sort of thing, as I see it, is that all those weird little character hooks people design automatically come to the fore.  You don't have to wait for the GM to pick up the hook or find a way, nor do you need to scan other situations for ways to use your hooks to complicate matters.  You just put it right up front and go hog-wild.

This would work really well, I think, with TROS SA's: you just build scenes around the things your own self, and everyone else pitches in to make things as messy as possible.  It would certainly be one way to run TROS without a Seneschal.

Another point is that in these examples, there's no plot.  Just one damn thing after another.  But on the other hand, everyone's involved and their characters are getting more complicated by the second.  If you wanted there to be a plot, people would be folding together their personal problems with plot issues, making NPC's a bigger deal, and so forth.

Chris Lehrich

[Mike Holmes]

Hey, I'm all for structure - every Universalis scene starts with a bid, and then a location, time, and elements.

The thing is that other games provide these things in other ways. That is, either they have a GM to set location, or, in the case of a game like TROS, they already have the "needs" for the scene encoded in the SAs themselves. That is, you don't have to take a moment and look at your sheet and see what SAs you have and then plan, you just play and the SAs "speak" to you in terms of what they "demand" to function. This mechanical feedback is, to my mind, superior than "meta-framing" the scene to "get it right."

So you end up with just fun play, not the "work" of playing before you play which detracts from the drama of the narration when it occurs. I'm not saying that scenes with agenda's can't be dramatic or even have surprises - just that you'll tend to see some planned stuff, and that always seems stilted.

As a slanted example, it's like you've said, "I'm going to have my character go to the door. OK? My character goes to the door." Why not just say, that the character goes to the door and edit in the process? Yes it's working without a net, but that's what's fun about RPGs to me.

Perhaps just a stylistic thing...

Mike