[Drill/Microgame/Warmup] I'm Gonna Make You Awesome

[Jason Morningstar]

This may not fit various definitions being formed here, but I think it's a valuable pre-play exercise.  So step off, haters! 

I'm Gonna Make You Awesome

This comes out of the improvisational theater tradition.  One of the central tenets to playing in scenes is that it is your core responsibility to make your fellow players look good.  If you are getting more laughs than they are, you are not trying hard enough.  When everybody is on the same page it reduces the pressure a lot, because you know that whatever dumb-ass move you make will be the best possible one to your team and they are there to pick you up and make you look fantastic.   

So engage in a round of I'm Gonna Make You Awesome before beginning play at your next tabletop roleplaying session.  Go around the table and tell every player - including the GM if there is one - what you, as a player, are going to do to make them awesome that evening.  And then follow through.  Maybe you are going to relentlessly hit their flags.  Maybe you are going to back up their plays like a lunatic henchman.  Maybe you are going to realize an amazing moment for their character.  I really have no idea what constitutes awesomeness to you and your friends, but you do, so make your commitment to them explicit and up front.  As an added bonus this ought to get everyone both really excited about playing and in the mood for agreement and mutual support. 

[matthijs]

This is really good. It could be used as an add-on to Prime Time Adventures, I think. "Your Screen Presence is 2, mine is 1. This session, I'm going to do this and this and this". I haven't tried the drill, but it seems to me the main key is, as you say, explicit commitment.

[Jason Morningstar]

You're right - It'd work especially well for PTA, since screen presence already telegraphs how you should be supporting (or be being supported by) other players. 

[Callan S.]

Is there room for an additional audience role? Someone who specifically isn't interested in assisting you to be awesome? Ie, the 'thing' your up against and need support from others to help surmount and be awesome?

[TonyLB]

It seems to me that you could totally say "I'm going to make you look awesome by trying my very best to defeat you!"  Why not?

[Jason Morningstar]

Absolutely, Tony!  From your AP posts, I gather that's how your people roll.  And isn't that pretty much mandatory for a rockin' Capes game?

[Jason Morningstar]

And Callan, if I understand you right, absolutely - "I'm gonna make you look awesome by staying the hell out of your way, so you can take on the Big Bad and either beat him or end up in his slave pits"

There are a million ways to make another player shine.  This game is really an exercise in externalizing that motivation, nothing more.

[Larry L.]

This is such excellent wisdom! "One of the central tenets to playing [RPGs] is that it is your core responsibility to make your fellow players look good" should appear in all game texts.

[Callan S.]

And Callan, if I understand you right, absolutely - "I'm gonna make you look awesome by staying the hell out of your way, so you can take on the Big Bad and either beat him or end up in his slave pits"

There are a million ways to make another player shine.  This game is really an exercise in externalizing that motivation, nothing more.

Not really what I mean. By audience, I mean one or more people who don't give a shit about making you look awesome. They are here to see something of interest and are not supportive of accepting any old thing as awesome. And that is your adversity which brings out something more from you. Impro theatre works from that, so I assume it's part of the whole idea.

[Jason Morningstar]

Sorry for the late reply...

I'm thinking of the play group as the actors, who all have an obligation to support each other.  There is nobody at the table who is a passive consumer of what you are producing.  This is the point where improv theory starts to get less relevant, because you are absolutely right - the audience has a role to play in a theatrical performance.