Learning to use Scene Agendas

[Jonathan Walton]

Yes it's working without a net, but that's what's fun about RPGs to me.

I think that's the key point, Mike.  Part of what started Tony down this road, I think, was a discussion of "new" gaming techniques on the Nobilis list.  One of the main ones was "aggressive scene framing" in the MLwM and Universalis sense.  I was advocating what I call "through-framing" as well, where both the opening and general outcome (and sometimes critical events in the middle) of a scene are framed before the players run through it.  For some people, this might get rid of "what's fun about RPGs," but that's a very personal issue.  What it also does is put a lot more narrative control in the player's hands.  The game stops being so much about "What Happens" and is more about "How It Happens and What This Says About The Characters/Setting/Etc." which, in my opinion, is much MORE fun.

So, yeah, I think it's a real YMMV technique, but can kick serious ass when pulled off well.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Funny, Jonathan ... I see that as less "narrative control" rather than more.

I suppose it would make sense to me if the term were "narration rights" rather than "narrative control." Does that seem reasonable to you?

Best,
Ron

[TonyLB]

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.

I was actually not offering this as a tool for helping the GM to trust the PCs, but for helping the PCs to trust each other.  I obviously phrased it poorly.  I'm sorry about that.

Normally a PC has to trust only one person with Director's power... expanding that to everyone in the group is a big step.  Even if the scene agendas are only training wheels for that, I think they're well worth it.

[TonyLB]

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."

Uh... in this statement, does "SA" stand for "Scene Agenda" or "Spiritual Attribute" or something else entirely?

[Jonathan Walton]

Funny, Jonathan ... I see that as less "narrative control" rather than more.

Hmm... you mean in the sense that the outcome is generalized before play, instead of determined by the players' actions during play?  So it's sorta becomes player-driven Illusionism, in that case?  Perhaps, but I think we're confusing the outcome of the scene with how events play out.

In the games where I've used something like through-framing, the determined outcome is something like "by the end of the scene, the players relationships will be more troublesome," with the possible addition of "at some point in the scene, Jenny should throw her engagement ring at Ronald."  You could frame more, if you like, determining what the cause of all the trouble is, or you could stop and just let certain things develop in play.  There's no set amount of framing that needs to happen.  It's just based on how much structure the players are comfortable with and how much they want to improvize during the scene itself.

Also, just because the purpose of the scene is pre-determined, it doesn't mean that ALL the action in a scene is related to that issue, just that the purpose is what most of the attention will be drawn to.

So, all of this, coupled with the fact that I like having "scene agendas" (as Tony calls them) determined by the players or group as a whole (not by the GM) makes me think that through-framing can be a tool for player empowerment, allow people to step up, take the reigns, and steer the game in the direction they want, much like calling for a scene in MLwM.

[Mike Holmes]

Careful with the term PC, that's a fictional character. You're talking about the players. I find it interesting that players would have a problem trusting each other. I mean with the GM, at least they may have had a pre-existing mode where the GM competed, or was at least seen as somebody who needed to be watched. PvP tension indicates PvP comptetition in the players' histories.

Was that the case previously? Was there lots of player competition? Functional or dysfunctional?

Oh, be careful with the acronym PC. Player Characters are fictional - I think that you're talking about the actual players.

And sorry to be ambiguous with my acronym; by SA I meant Spiritual Attributes - I was refering to TROS throughout the example. But it's just an expample, other games have other methods. Inspectres, for instance, supports players framing coherent scenes via structure and the attributes.

Jonathan, I can see the style potentially, but it strikes me as being a tad like Simulationism in that your constraints are alread given once you head into the scene - the main difference here being that the player gives himself the constraints instead of the GM. I'd just prefer to do it during the scene using other structure like, say, HQ personality trait abilities as a guideline.  

Mike

[Mike Holmes]

So, all of this, coupled with the fact that I like having "scene agendas" (as Tony calls them) determined by the players or group as a whole (not by the GM) makes me think that through-framing can be a tool for player empowerment, allow people to step up, take the reigns, and steer the game in the direction they want, much like calling for a scene in MLwM.

We crossposted above. So at the risk of posting one right after the other...

Would you use this method in MLWM? No? Because the game already does it for you with it's options, right?

See, as a mechanic, I can see what you're talking about. But if this is just to be placed over another game, then I think it interferes with the game's extant methods for producing narrativist play. OTOH, if your goal is to drift a non-narrativist game to a narrativist one, then I think it'll work pretty well. I just think that the narrativist games do it better than these "conversions" would.

What system was this going to be played over?

Mike

[TonyLB]

It's layered on Amber DRPG.

[TonyLB]

PvP tension indicates PvP comptetition in the players' histories.

I don't  think that follows.  Trusting somebody not to deliberately set out to destroy your enjoyment is a much lower bar than trusting them not to do it accidentally.  None of my players are attributing malice to each other, but the thought of boundless power in many hands still makes them feel uneasy.

Jonathan, I can see the style potentially, but it strikes me as being a tad like Simulationism in that your constraints are alread given once you head into the scene

Do you think a Scene Agenda is a constraint?  I thought of it more as a common short-term goal.  

Do you see it being inherently more constraining then any other part of the social contract?

[Mike Holmes]

None of my players are attributing malice to each other, but the thought of boundless power in many hands still makes them feel uneasy.

Huh. OK. Still seems like unfamiliarity to me, but then who knows.

Jonathan, I can see the style potentially, but it strikes me as being a tad like Simulationism in that your constraints are alread given once you head into the scene

Do you think a Scene Agenda is a constraint?  I thought of it more as a common short-term goal.  

Do you see it being inherently more constraining then any other part of the social contract?

Those sound like synonyms to me: Agenda and Constraint. Note that I think that constraints in general are a fine thing. In this case, however, they constrain your in-scene play a lot like sim does in that it's not creation in scene but out. That is, I'd tend to see the creation of the scene agenda as the creative act, and the scene itself as just window dressing. Depending a lot on how much was pre-determined, of course.

Are there guidelines for going too far, or not planning enough?

Mike

[DannyK]

PvP tension indicates PvP comptetition in the players' histories.

I don't  think that follows.  Trusting somebody not to deliberately set out to destroy your enjoyment is a much lower bar than trusting them not to do it accidentally.  None of my players are attributing malice to each other, but the thought of boundless power in many hands still makes them feel uneasy.

Hmm, I wonder.  If you're playing games like Nobilis and Amber DRPG, then the players already have the power to trash the setting in very significant ways, even before you start giving them directorial control.  

That might be a way to make this more palatable to the players: they're already trusting each other not to have their characters, for example, pull the plug on their favorite Shadow or kick Dworkin in the goolies.  So giving the player the remote is maybe not such a big deal.  

I suppose you could always try it as a "special episode", too, the way the old MASH series would occasionally throw in a show filmed in B&W, or without a laughtrack, or whatever.  It flatters everyone's intellectual pretensions, and there's no hard feelings if the consensus afterward is negative.

DannyK

[TonyLB]

Are there guidelines for going too far, or not planning enough?

That's a darn fine question.  Does anyone have suggestions on what sort of guidelines would help make the tool more useful to all?