typical story structure for an rpg session

[Tyler.Tinsley]

I'm a little stuck and brain dead, posting here helps sometimes so here we go.

so what kind of story structure do you like in an rpg? and what structure do you see repeating from session to session? how does this structure fit into a larger continuing story?

I'm thinking in terms like this

Establish new conflict (give players something to do)

Start to resolve conflict (players figure out how they are going to do it)

Finish resolving conflict (players do it)

Conflict is connected to larger conflict of the campaign (doing it progresses the story of the campaign)

Falling action (players spend loot, rewards)

has this be discussed already? I would love to know what other people think about story/game structure.

[Simon C]

What's the context here? What's this for?

Are you asking what people like so you can make a game that delivers that? Opinion surveys are rarely a succesful design tool.

You may be interested in the concept of "IIEE".  That's Intent, Initiation, Execution, Effect.  It's a way of describing and deliniating the stages of a conflict (a character trying to achieve something in the fiction, against resistance).  That's a little smaller scale than what you seem to be looking at.

The stuff you're interested in seems to be in the larger structure of finding conflicts, resolving conflicts (IIEE), and establishing the fallout of that resolution.  That's interesting stuff, and too often ignored in game design, I think.  Can you expand on your thoughts?

[Tyler.Tinsley]

I want it to be easy for players to have compelling sessions and campaigns, i figure if I were to parse out what the compelling elements of a story were and have the rules directly follow this it would lead to a good experience.

like here is a structure for most dungeon delves

at the tavern
adventurers are made aware of some goal... gold

Visit the local, smith and town mayor
Player collect information and plan how to get gold

Players enter dungeon and get gold

Players spend gold

End up back at tavern repeat

When you think about it most DnD characters are like my uncle, who is a drunk and only works to buy ale...  beer

Most tv shows have A, B, and sometimes C plots for an episode, some plots will advance the major story arks some are just gags. Mouse Guard kind of has sub plots in that each character sets a goal for the session and that usually plays out like a sub plot.

currently for the game I'm working on i have a slick system to generate characters, and a good idea for how they behave in specific situations (how to resolve character action.

what I'm working on now is something that will help the player's dynamically string these moments and scenes together in a compelling story

[7VII7]

In my english class last year (or maybe it was the year before?) we learned about the basic plot structure for stories which sounds what you're looking for, here's a link to a basic graphic for it; http://www.readwritethink.org/lesson_images/lesson223/plot_mountain.pdf

What you describe could also be describe using that as:

Introduction: At the tavern, hearing a rumor about the dungeon

Rising Action: Going to the dungeon and starting to explore it

Climax: A close encounter or a boss fight

Falling Action: clearing out the rest of the dungeon & excaping

Resolution: Going to town & spending the gold.

[Tyler.Tinsley]

yeah i have used the intro, rising, climax, falling, structure for my last game, i guess I'm looking for something a little more specific. something a little more like this

http://everything2.com/node/634236?bookmark_site=delicious&op=socialBookmark

[Simon C]

Ok, cool.  This sounds like an interesting idea.

I think stuff like this is most interesting when it's tied pretty specifically to the game that you're making, so it's not "mechanics for a great story" but rather "mechanics for the kind of story my game promotes".

One way games do this is with a "scene economy", where certain kinds of scene are required to achieve certain results.  You could imagine something like this for your D&D example:

Tavern Scene: PCs spend gold and listen to rumours.  If they succeed at "gather information" rolls, they can learn information that might be useful later on.  Once three "gather information" rolls have been made (pass or fail), they meet the Patron, who gives them a task.  From there, they can choose Smith scenes, Information scenes, or Mayor scenes.

Smith scenes: Characters can spend gold on equipment.  They can roll "persuade", "lies" or "intimidate" to get good prices.  Characters can also get access to special equipment if they succeed at three charisma checks over three seperate Smith scenes.

Information scenes: Characters can try to get more information about their task.  Thay can roll "gather information", "carousing", "animal speech" and so on.  If they succeed, they get special information that will be very useful.

Mayor scenes: The characters can roll skills to get the mayor to give them allies, gold, and special favours in the town. 

Once there have been three Smith, Information, or Mayor scenes, move on to the "Dungeon" scene.

Dungeon Scenes: The characters fight their way through the dungeon, looking for the boss room.  Once you find the boss room, you can have a "Boss Scene".

Boss Scene:  The characters fight the dungeon boss.  They can get bonuses if they have useful information.  If they beat the boss, they get gold, and can have a "Celebration" scene.

Celebration Scene: The characters party! They can go up levels and celebrate with the townsfolk.  At the end of the celebration scene, the adventure is over.  You can have a Tavern scene now.

So that's a slightly silly example of how you you could make a scene economy game for D&D, that would give you the story structure you want, every time.  Of course, it's a pretty restrictive structure, but maybe that's ok.  You can mix it up by maybe allowing for more kinds of scene, having optional other scenes (maybe you could have a "Wilderness" scene), or maybe you could let certain kinds of character have their own kind of scene.

For more complexity, you could develop a kind of cyclical flow-chart diagram, where each scene type, depending on what happens in the scene, flows into several different kinds of scene.

[Callan S.]

I see alot of crap structure repeating from session to session. Mostly because of the focus on gameworld causality.

Honestly I think it'd be better to look at movies and books, strip the structure from them then modify it to fit in on the fly, mid play authorship/players can do shit. More specifically I think it'd be good to look at movies and books you and your group have all enjoyed at some point. If it's not too personal a question, which ones have you all enjoyed?

Also I think focus on the structure may be missplaced - structure is kind of a spine - important, but if there is no heart that it supports, it's just a spine. Those movies/books will help identify the heart.

[Vulpinoid]

I deliberately used a five act structure for my game, the Eighth Sea.

The first sets the scene

The second provides the characters with a goal

The third provides obstacles on the way to that goal

The fourth consists of the resolution to the goal

The fifth deals with the aftermath of the goal being completed (or not)

Play moves in a cycle through each act, players trying to earn enough successes to move the story forward, otherwise they play through the act again.

There's a few more complications to it than that, but it works pretty well.

V

[Klaus Graziade]

I really like the idea of using the five-point story structure (ala Freytag) or something similar to get at the bare bones of the conflict at hand.  Structures like these have always helped me to establish the essence of the "drama" before adding in the color.  However, I am sometimes wary of following it strictly, especially on a microcosmic level (for, say, resolution mechanics).  Experience has shown me that the latter idea can really muddle things up when your gaming group likes the idea of "one roll - one resolution" mechanics.  My ramblings aside, I would love to see more of what your character generation mechanics do to bring together the story; it sounds like a really cool idea, especially using plots and sub-plots that are connected.

All in all, I'm eager to hear more!

Take care,
K.G.