Breaks

[Paul Czege]

Then again, Tom does have a pretty good singing voice.

Oh, he absolutely does not!

But this issue of player silliness during that game session does kind of bring up something I've been mulling over that might make for an interesting "actual play" discussion. I'm thinking of the possibility of a correlation between scene framing techniques and player inclination to "surf" the scenario with a higher than average amount of silliness?

Think back to Danielle's character Summer's first scene. She's sitting in her astronomy class. Reality looks strange and unusual. The floor undulates. She sees the ring just out of her reach. Does she touch it? Does she pick it up? Does she put it on??

And then think back to my character Rachna's first scene. The kitchenette is empty except for Rachna and the nurse. The nurse is staring. It's obvious she's attracted to Rachna. What does Rachna do? Talk to her?

The scenes present a temptation. They feature it. And it waits.

So I've been thinking. Does that somehow put the player in a zone that includes silliness? Presented with a captive audience of employees, the corporate VP gabs about trivialities, confidently ensconced in his power to start and stop the meeting at the vagaries of his ego and whim. And if so, if "what do you do?" is something the player prowls around, like a cocky boxer mugging for the camera, and the audience, then is there a way of framing scenes that go beyond temptation, reach out and engage the player?

And then maybe breaks become a necessity?

Paul

[ This Message was edited by: Paul Czege on 2001-12-07 17:00 ]

[hardcoremoose]

Mike,

My current game of interest is It Came From The late, Late, Late Show.  Among its many metagame optoions is one called The Commercial Break.  Each player gets to call one once during a session, and it lasts about sixty seconds (the GM can call them anytime, and they last as long as he wants).  The default reason to use a Commercial Break is to discuss combat strategy and whatnot, but the game implies that Commercial Breaks could be used for other things (for instance, if the players do something that makes the GM laugh so hard that  he needs to call a Break, they get extra points or something).

As amusing as that is, its utility is minor in the game.  Not nearly as cool as the Film Break option.


Paul,

I'll get back to your question as soon as I process it a bit more.


- Scott

[Ben Morgan]

When I first found Late Show years ago, I had come up with a whole list of cool metagame tricks to use when running it.

I wanted to start off by going into each scene describing everything but what everyone were supposed to be seeing (like going on about the ceiling tiles, or the brick wall off to the side), because the cameraman was stoned and couldn't keep the camera straight.

I wanted all the crew to start getting progressively more cranky (to the point of outright hysterical paranoia) because someone forgot to put the coffee on.

I wanted guys in space alien costumes to show up out of nowhere because they got lost and wandered onto the wrong set.

I *so* wanted to rip off Return of the Killer Tomatoes, and have the production run out of funding halfway through, and then have someone suggest product placement.

Unfortunately, the game was deemed too weird by the group I was with at the time. Oh well, I'm getting a new group together, so it's time to dig through the old notebooks. (evil grin)

[Mike Holmes]

On 2001-12-09 22:18, Amazing Kreskin wrote:
Unfortunately, the game was deemed too weird by the group I was with at the time. Oh well, I'm getting a new group together, so it's time to dig through the old notebooks.

Same problem here. In fact, it's been so long since I looked at my copy of Late Show that I had completely forgotten the Commercial Break mechanic, thanks Moose.

Oddly, this is like the third time that someone has mentioned Late Show to me recently. Hmmm....

Mike