Techniques for driving conflict in a scene

[John Harper]

One of the jobs of the Producer in PTA is to drive the action of the a scene towards conflict. How do you do this? I'd like this thread to be a place to share ideas, advice, and actual play about practical techniques to drive towards conflict and what to do once you get there.

Here's an example scene and conflict outcome to consider, which may be useful as common-ground for us to discuss hypothetical techniques:

Matt is playing Luke Skywalker. In the current scene he has met a weird old wizard out in the desert. The wizard claims to be a legendary warrior from long ago that was a friend of Luke's father. The old guy even has an ancient magic weapon that belonged to Luke's dad. Now, the wizard has a proposition: Leave this planet and come with me on an adventure across the galaxy!

I smell a conflict. Will Luke go with the crazy old guy, or not? Luke wants to stay at home and play it safe. The old wizard wants Luke to choose a life of adventure. Roll those dice!

Let's say that the old wizard wins the conflict, but the player (Matt) gets to narrate. He says that Luke rebuffs the old man and tries to go home, only to find that Imperial Stortroopers have destroyed it and killed his family. Now he has no choice but to follow the old guy.

Consider some other outcomes as an exercise. What happens if Luke wins this conflict? What if the player narrates Luke's win? What if the producer narrates Luke's win?

Here's another thing to consider: when do the dice come into play in this conflict? In the film, Luke *really* makes his decision only after he goes home and finds the bodies. Is that when the dice are rolled? Before that? After that? What tools do you use as Producer to decide when to roll?

I prefer a technique that brings the dice roll in as early as possible. The details of why and how can come out in narration. I find that if I leave the dice roll until too late, then the outcomes seem already decided by virtue of all the action that has led up to them.

In the Epidemonology thread, Vincent suggests holding off on the dice roll until the scene develops more fully.

What do you think? How do you drive towards conflict? When do you bring out the dice?

[Alan]

Hi John,

I think in PTA we have to see the dice roll almost as Fortune-in-the-middle-of-the-Scene (FitMotS?).  (From my play experience, I'd say most PTA scenes usually have only one rolled conflict.)

Fiction books they tell us that every scene has a beginning, middle, and end.  The beginning contains what we call scene framing, as well as the introduction of elements of conflict, the middle is the back and forth of trying to resolve it, and the end is the final push that results in some irreversable outcome.

I think in PTA, Matt's intentions are that one play the beginning and start into the middle before rolling the dice.  That means scene framing, then some attempt to resolve the conflict.  One can even play the whole middle, an extended conflict, and make the dice roll at the transition from middle to end.

After the dice roll, the narrator goes about explaining how the conflict was resolved, essentially describing any remaining middle, and the end.  

Another concept: turning points mark the transition from beggining to middle, and middle to end. Detecting these turning points might aid in deciding when to roll the dice.

So from your Star Wars example, we have

Beginning:
Luke visists Obi-wan's house and delivers the droid.  Obi-wan talks about his father, then...

Turning Point:
... brings out the saber and suggests Luke come with him.   (This is a turning point because Luke must respond to the emotional weight of the legacy.)

Middle:
Luke asks questions, makes excuses, whines a little ....  Obi-wan makes a few counter arguments.   Luke decides to go home.

Turning Point:
... Storm Troopers have blasted Uncle Owen & Aunt Beru
(Okay, now Luke can't avoid the threat of the Empire - any choice he makes here , makes a premise-relevant statement.)

End:
The twin sun sets, the wind blows through Luke's hair, music swells.  He decides to go.

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One aside I want to make is that the discovery of the bodies can be a separate Director-inserted bang, not related at all to the conflict.  Luke might have already won, but the Director wants to throw issue-fodder at him.  
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So where was the dice roll?  Somewhere in the middle, yes, but is there any preference?  It could have been after Luke's first objection, or it could have been after the players played through the discussion to a point where Obi-wan's arguments seemed exhausted.

I'd argue that, in general, letting the players develop the middle more raises the tension of the scene, while rolling early can cut the tension.  The higher tension scene might be appropriate for a more significant moment in play (especially for spotlight characters), while the lower tension of early resolution might be better for less important, or sub-plot moments.

I guess I'm saying that ideally, I think both have there place.

[Matt Wilson]

John and I had a long IM discussion that precipitated this thread, and one of the things that came up was that it's not so easy to reverse-engineer scene-scale conflicts into a movie. In a task-resolution game, you can pretty much chart out where the failed and successful rolls are in Star Wars.  "Make a spot check to see if you notice the accuracy of the blast points," or "Make a sleight of Hand check to draw your blaster without Greedo noticing ."

With a game like Primetime Adventures (and not just this game) there's several different ways you could interpret what happens in a scene in terms of conflict. Is the conflict really "does Luke go with Ben?" Maybe what's at stake is "does Luke trust what Ben says?" In that case, the player fails the conflict, and whoever narrates has Luke drive off recklessly, putting himself in danger.

I think seeing how many different interpretations of that scene people are able to come up with is a useful thing for players new to this kind of game, and since everyone tends to have a different view of Star Wars, it's likely that there'll be plenty of different interpretations of that conflict.

[John Harper]

Good point, Matt. I forgot that part of our discussion.

Let's see... I think I can spot several possible conflicts in the Star Wars example right off the bat (assuming Luke as the protag):

[*]R2-D2 is missing. Luke wants to find him so his Uncle won't be angry with him. Will he find the droid, or face the wrath of his Uncle? (Success -- He does find him, but the Producer introduces a Bang: old Ben Kenobi).
[*]While searching for R2-D2, Luke runs into some Sand People (Producer bang). Will Luke defeat the Sand People?
[*]Looks like Stormtroopers are on the trail of the droids! They're headed for Luke's house! Can he make it there in time to warn his family?[/list:u]

I like Matt's conflict idea, too ("Does Luke trust Ben?"). There are probably many more possible conflicts in this example situation, too. Spotting potential conflicts like these seems to be a primary Producer job in PTA, but is also critical for players. Since there are so many ways for a scene to go, it's good to know as a player where you want to take your protag's story.

The act of framing the scene will have a huge impact on conflict selection, too. Framing very early in this situation (R2-D2 is gone!) is very different from framing very late ("Only stormtroopers are this accurate.").

Since PTA play is a series of key moments as opposed to the "and then, and then, and then" play of traditional RPGs, a major skill to develop is a feel for what moments you want to put on screen and which are passed over. It's tricky, and it takes time and practice to master.

[Matt Wilson]

Here's another way of looking at the Ben/Luke conflict. Conflicts are all about this: "does the character get what he/she wants."

Luke is torn between a) his desire to go off and have adventures and b) his loyalty to his uncle. The player says what Luke ultimately wants is to go, and that he must find a way to get past this loyalty.

So the player loses the roll. The narrator says that Luke does in fact go with Ben, but not because he got over his loyalty. In fact, loyalty makes him abandon Ben and rush back home. But Owen and Beru have been killed, so there's no longer a reason not to go with Ben.

So in this way the character ultimately does not get what he/she wants, but the story moves forward in the direction that the players want it to go.

If the player had succeeded, then maybe narration would be "Luke leaves a note for his uncle that says sorry, I really need to go do this."