Structure and creativity in RPGs. A thread because I’m away from my normal distractions and have thoughts.

This is about something that, due to the nature of RPGs, isn’t necessarily a problem, but it does hamper finding some of the really high highs you could achieve.

I see it in new theatre directors all the time and the frustrating thing is that no one tells them about it and it can be hard to see in the moment

It’s directing for the scene, not the show.

And RPGs can benefit from thinking for the long term, even though the future isn’t set

So new directors often learn how to squeeze every single thing they can out of a scene. It’s practical—-you can work on a scene in a reasonable time frame. You can improve it.

But if you do this for every scene in a show, the show crumbles.

Just sucks.

Has no center.

I saw a play where the main character entered with a giant shock at what had happened. It was Huge—-it get our attention and immediately made the audience lean forward.

Except he had nowhere to go the rest of the play— a cartoon the entire time and the audience POV was lost.

If they had pulled back, they could have escalated through the show so there was an impact later on instead of making the whole thing dull.

And a lot of games tend to approach things full bore.

I’ve heard from a lot of players afraid to have NPCs important to them bc of the rush to dramatic tension.

“Your brother’s been kidnapped.”
It’s a lot more effective if we have smaller scenes where they all get to meet and care about the brother.

Bc the PC has a brother, the PC has assigned an emotional value in their head (which is great for horror one shots) but it’s not a real relationship because you haven’t developed it yet.
Don’t wring that drama yet—-build up the impact, even w/o planning the kidnap.

Spending time to develop the aspects of your world and the relationships that exist without putting a lot of pressure on them let you see what people care about, build relationships, have reasons to give a shit.
Because the reason is often “it’s what the game is about 2nte.”

As a group, you haven’t done the work to make someone we want to rescue as opposed to someone we’re supposed to rescue. Or maybe we don’t want to but we have to—-he’s your brother, ya know? Even if he’s an ass—-family.

Mr. Johnson is going to betray the runners and GMs think it’s a BIG SHOCK.
And it never fucking is.
Every SR player I know expect this to happen.
They shouldn’t. Because, fictionally, a fixer who sets up runners with a Mr. Johnson who betrays them seen stops bring trusted.

If I were a Fixer and a Johnson I got runners in contact with betrayed them, I’d raise hell across their entire world.

But what about a Mr. Johnson the players have worked with before. Who they have a relationship with.

What happens when that person is put in a position where some powerful reason pushes them to have to? What do they players do when they find out and can know the reason? Especially if that reason is important enough that they maybe understand, if not forgive?

A lot more drama, excitement, and pathos happens when you “direct for the campaign” and not just the session.
Build, even if you don’t know what you’re going to do with it yet. When you have a world that feels real, you start to find that work you did will pay off, richly.