Buffy and the Perils of Scene Framing

[John Kim]

OK, so a bit of a report on the Buffy the Vampire Slayer RPG campaign that I've been playing in.  There is a campaign website at http://www.darkshire.net/~jhkim/rpg/buffy/siliconvalley/  There is plenty of stuff on those links.  

Last season was GMed by Bill.  This season Bill and I are switching off GMing.  The other players include Liz (long-time player and spouse of mine), Heather (long-time player in the group), Cynthia (relatively new to role-playing though played in Season One, Buffy fan, girlfriend of Bill) plus Tyler (met through local cons, played irregularly in Season One), Madeline (who played at my Buffy event at ConQuest a few months ago and signed up), and Shannon (friend, new to role-playing, irregular player during Season One).  

So I GMed the first three episodes.  You can read transcripts on the web page, but in brief:  each of them had a relatively thin frame-story.  There was an evil opponent that had to be defeated, which was symbolic (as befits a Buffy game).  In the first episode, say, there were zombie workers for an old startup company.  But as long as the opponent was beaten, I didn't have much structure to my plans.  

After my three, Bill was slated to run episodes 4-6.  Basically, episode 4 did not go over so well.  It's a little tricky to work out, but it came down to a sense of railroading.  Here is part of my feedback to him about it.  

So some feedback on the last Buffy game:  As you commented, the plot was more involved than it needed to be.  We got through it, but I think it produced tension through the game over pacing.  I'll give an example:  At the start of the game, you set Max and Dot going back to work on a Friday evening from an Indian restaurant.  This was strange to me.  You could have asked: What are Max and Dot doing Friday night?  It would probably have taken a bit more time, but that's useful time.  I guess I'd boil this down to four points:

[*] Simplify the plot, and don't specify things you don't have to.  In this case, one option would be a simpler solution once the cause was rooted out (like a counter-spell).  We already had superpowered opponents to fight -- i.e. the kids, who could have pressed an attack.  Simplification allows more leeway for players to do their own things.
[*] Once the players have the evidence and make their research roll (i.e. once we had the game CD), you should tell them the gist of what is going on.  If the players know what is going on, they can drive the action.
[*] If the players are more in control and more informed, then it is much more palatable to throw difficult stuff at them.  For example, I would say the sniper should have done *much* more damage (like 24, doubled for penetrating damage to 48).
[*] Another option is to give over drama points to the player when you do something bad to them by GM fiat, as suggested in the rules.

Anyhow, Bill took this and we discussed some subplot things more.  But the simple takeaway point was "less plot".  

Episode #5 (run this past Saturday) went over much better.  We had one new player -- Jim, who had played in my Vinland game for ages -- but Shannon wasn't there.  So Bill had the simple story of going to a technical conference of technopagans.  However, he started out with my suggestion of a basic go around the table and ask everyone what they're doing.  From this, we quickly became embroiled on the problem of setting up Roberta (Cynthia's PC, our boss) on a date.  Meanwhile, we also decided that we wanted to interview Doug Finn, Tyler's new PC who was introduced but not hired last time.  Anyhow, some 45 minutes later, Bill decided to simply drop the whole technical conference idea and just went to supporting what our plans were.  I spent a Drama Point that Doug (who's from a family of demon hunters) was old enemies with the ghost of a necromancer/CEO who hangs around our place.  So Joshua (the ghost) had him go through a portal to a hell dimension as part of his interview.  And Carlos moved to the peninsula close to work and threw a housewarming party.  We were forced to bring our CFO in on the secrets of vampire-slaying.  And Dot and Max advanced their relationship with discussion of kids (generating the show-stopping line of the night).  Carlos' house-warming party became the central action, and there we tried to set up Roberta with (a) Jim's new PC who answered our personal ad; and (b) Hans, Carlos' old mentor and a Watcher.  Neither of them worked out, though Jim's PC Tad was pretty hilarious.  

Someone commented later in, "Isn't anything supernatural going to happen?"  And indeed, Bill closed this out by having some demons from the dimension that Doug had intruded on come back and cause trouble.  We fought them some, then made a deal with them and sent them back.  

Anyhow, I found the lesson Bill learned interesting.  In Forge terms, my advice was to drop the idea of aggressive scene framing, but instead just adopt the simpler "What do you do now?"  Now, this is exactly the opposite of what a bunch of recent games suggest.  It is at least an interesting contrast to compare this with, say, MLWM (which I played with Bill, Liz, and Cynthia).

[Callan S.]

I'll give an example: At the start of the game, you set Max and Dot going back to work on a Friday evening from an Indian restaurant. This was strange to me. You could have asked: What are Max and Dot doing Friday night? It would probably have taken a bit more time, but that's useful time.

I'm wondering if scene framing needs to involve something that makes it a real scene. Like going back to work at an indian resteraunt...where's the potential scene there? The potential conflict waiting to flair up?

Perhaps they want you to scene frame the nearby, ready to explode conflict...and they cover things like why they chose to be there, positioning or whatever.

Mostly thinking out loud here, but scene framing without a conflict doesn't leave the players anyway to add their own mark in how and why they are now approaching that conflict. With no descriptive options (well, they could describe stuff about going back to work...but what conflict is that going to influence?), they just follow your lead.

[John Kim]

I'm wondering if scene framing needs to involve something that makes it a real scene. Like going back to work at an indian resteraunt...where's the potential scene there? The potential conflict waiting to flair up?

Er, sorry, that was quoted feedback to Bill, and I didn't give the example for Forge readers.  In that episode, Bill scene framed to Max and Dot walking back to work when they heard a fight -- it turned out to be a kid who had become supernaturally strong and tossed a policeman across the street.  The conflict was how did they deal with the kid: he's angry and superpowered, and striking out at the police, but he's still just a kid.  This was a lead-in to further issues in the episode as more kids are given supernatural video-game-like powers.  This pretty much followed the idea of pushing the conflict.  i.e. What if the kids have lethal powers?  What if the kid actually kills someone?  What if the kids are your (boss's) relatives?