Planning to GM freeform
In a comment to ASF freeform and Jeepform Tobias said “Keep me posted on this”. He referred to my promise to try to convey the premise of the From Atlantis scenario I intend to GM to the players. The scenario is Prometheus’s Mistake.
In comments to this post I’ll talk about the premise and the different techniques I’m planning to use to spice up a fairly straightforward scenario. I’m inviting Jonas Barkå, Tobias and almost anyone else to read, but am banning Sven, Björn, Helena, Tomas and Kristoffer since they’ll be playing. You guys will have to wait until I’ve chewed the ideas, spit them out and packaged them to serve as candy at the session at the 2nd of July. Hmm, perhaps not the best of metaphors.
Anyway players, you’ll only ruin things for yourselves if you read the comments.
The premise stated in the beginning of the scenario is the question of free will versus fate. It's followed by a couple of questions:
There are a couple of ways this premise is visible in the scenario. The players control two characters: one living at Atlantis before the catastrophe and one living in the present who's looking for the old civilization. One player will control the Atlanthean Askletios, the son of the god Apollon, as well as a disguised Apollon in the present. Askletios will be killed by Zeus in the last Atlantis scene when he tries to resurrect another character after the catastrophe. Apollon will then follow the souls of the friends of Askletios through the ages until the second apocalypse in the present. To avenge his son he will save the present-day characters from dying. This character couple, Askletios and Apollon, is the one that has the most to do with the premise, but the others do as well.
Another character couple is Kassandra/Evelyn Thomson. Kassandra is a philosopher interested in lots of questions. I will try to interest the player in questions of free will and determinism, since Kassandra can lead a philosophical discussion in one Atlantis scene. Evelyn Thomson writes self-improvement books, and has a lot to do with the third bulleted question above.
I'm not going to talk about the other three character pairs right now, but they are also persons who try to improve themselves or the world in some way. One is for example an Atlantis peasant who's becoming a soldier and is increasing his social standing immensely.
Techniques then?
I really like to try something I've picked up from the RPG Puppetland: I want to describe things as GM in past tense during the scenes at Atlantis and in present tense during the present-day scenes. I have no idea if I'm up to it, or if it'll end in a disaster, but I think it'll both help convey the story-like feeling of Atlantis as well as clearly marking the past as something inevitable that has happened and the present as something that the players and characters can affect.
Another thing is an in-character dinner scene. The second Atlantis scene is the party where the peasant's family is celebrating his new status as soldier, and I want to do the dinner in-character. This is not something very new or controversial, and we've done it before in my group. But since everyone liked it last time I think they'll do it this time to. A dinner scene gives people a lot of time to stay in character and talk to the others without feeling rushed. I'll play the father of the peasant boy, and will read a letter from his brother that is of some importance to the scenario.
I want to remove the table. Tobias asked me “What table?” in a comment on freeform at his blog, and I agree. We won't need a table, but instead remove it and put our chairs and sofas in an open circle. The space in the middle will be used when people feel like acting out standing. I want people to move around a lot, and use the whole room. I've complained a bit before about the hidden doors in the scenario, actual hidden doors in the floor that the characters have to find. I'll use it as a scene breaker, letting them find the door, but I'll actually point at a place on the floor. Perhaps I'll even mark it out with some tape or something. The point is that the players will have a physical object that they can stand around and discuss in character. I think it'll be cool.
Another thing is of course the scene endings. I'll have to explain before each scene how, when and by who it'll be ended. I'll think through the scenes before hand to find some good way to do it without losing the immersion of the players.
The last thing is my position as GM. I think I'll try to stay out of the circle of the players, to make them act towards each other and not me. Only when I have a character in the scene will I join them, or when I need to give them OOC information. This way they'll know that they're doing the right thing as long as I'm not entering the circle.
That's it for now, perhaps more will come when I've put some more thought into it.
According to the Forge dictionary techniques are “Specific procedures of play which, when employed together, are sufficient to introduce fictional characters, places, or events into the Shared Imagined Space”. This is the way I use the term. But what interest me is not mainly how, but why. I try to find a reason for using cool narrative techniques, and to try to use only techniques that help me reach a certain mood.
Anyway, I forgot one technique I'm planning to use: I'll have the players switch places between each scene. The reason is twofold:
1) Since the scenes alternate between Atlantis and present-day Greenland it'll be easier for the players to know they're switching character.
2) It will hopefully remove the tendency to just roleplay in a general direction, and instead look at or approach the other player.
I think (1) will be a very clear way of signalling scene transitions without confusing the players. To switch places with someone requires action, and you can't do it without thinking about whether you really want to end the scene.
Number 2 is just to remedy an observed behaviour, but I don't think this technique alone will remove it. Perhaps one doesn't want to remove it, in normal conversation people rarely look straight at the person they're talking to, since it would be forcing people to behave more like actors on a stage. But I do think it can be helpful in getting people to feel meaningful and involved if the others acknowledge their presence by looking at them while talking.
This is good stuff. I'm in England working at the present, so I won't have the time to look at this until Sunday or Monday.
(Just to let you know I'm interested and aware of this.)
Thanks, it's always nice to know that someone's interested. We'll play tomorrow, Saturday. I'll write a report, where I hope to get comments from the players as well, in the beginning of next week. By then I should know if any of the techniques made play different from the usual sit-around-the-table play that the group is used to.
Okay. I'm having some trouble sleeping and the wavelan at the hotel is actually working at the moment.
Tying in-game actions to physical actions is good. Dividing the room into two halves, e.g., Atlantis space and Present time space enables smooth transitions, just as you say. Another good thing about it is that it also enables a player to briefly enter the second world to do something that reflects the game going on in the first. Scenes that go on in parallel in the different worlds are also made easier that way as there is less risk of mixing up what information belongs where.
Also, I'd push for actually using the space you have as a representation of the in-game locations. An important quality of freeform gamers is their ability to constantly telegraph to all other players where they are going, what their character is experiencing etc. in order to have a unified goal. Using things around you is a good way of doing this. Marking things with tape is pretty good, but interacting with an actual door is usually even better. Just stroke the back of the couch while saying “the coffin” and everyone gets the point. (You all know this stuff, of course.) Too much prearrangement can be constraining. Open spaces is a must, but the room must be “open to improvisation”.
(I had a wonderful session in a corridor recently, where we used double doors as a double bed and played standing against them as if the entire scene was shot from above. That was really nice. (I'd like to build a game that revolves around such things.))
On a sidenote, I'm a bit impressed by the premise. I generally complain about lack of premise (including in my own stuff) and this is exceptional.
Personally, I don't really like in-character dinners etc. in freeform games. The reason for that is that it tends to tie the game to a certain time and place. A freeform game is generally very agile — it can go anywhere at anytime since most props are representational and players play together with a common goal (yes, I've ranted about this before). Having an in-game dinner with actual food etc. goes against this; all of a sudden, the game becomes “unnecessarily larp-ish” (for some definition of that, closely related to Jeep rants about larp as simulation). In a sense, a dinner table is equally constraining the game as the old “table-top table”. I hope you get my point.
As I have said previously, being in-character is not necessarily the best way of immersion (IMHO), but giving people time and opportunity to stay in character is naturally a good thing.
I like the idea of using past and present tense for the different times. As a gamemaster, I'm having some real troubles with present tense as it doesn't really go well with my voice input. I'm a sucker for past tense, and breaking free is a bitch. Anyway, this use is quite arty, and I like it.
A note on scene endings. You could just give each player a note beforehand telling her which scenes she can end and how. Less disturbing brakes during the game and little enough information to be able to remember it.
A bit about: “This way they'll know that they're doing the right thing as long as I'm not entering the circle.” I see what you are trying for, but I don't think it is right. I don't think game master input should be the result of the players not “doing the right thing”. The game master can and should enrich the game and give input at any time. Everytime you enter the circle, you are implicitly saying to your players, “you made a mistake”. They will be extra cautious of your input, which is bad. Also, they will fight to keep you out of the circle, which is not what freeform is about. Do you see my point? Under the right circumstances, the gamemaster might not really be needed (at least not for input), but this is not the right way to build on such an assumption. Feel free to disagree, of course. Looking at myself reacting to your ideas is really instructive for me.
Okay. Time for me to go up and go to work. More about this later. I don't know wheather reading these comments before playing is such a good idea. Anyway, here they are.