It's example time!

Here's how this thread works. Someone posts a goal, free-play action, or scene-request from a player. Then someone else posts the framing for that scene, to show how "aggressive scene framing" works. Multiple frames from a given goal are cool. Anyone can play, but I'd love see some action from Tony, Ron, Vincent, Clinton, Matt... and any other old-hands at this. If there's not enough to go on in a given goal or request, feel free to flesh it out to your satisfaction and then show the scene-framing from there.

I'll start:
"I want to get the Hand of Flame back from the Count. Let's sneak into his castle!"

"I want to get the Hand of Flame back from the Count. Let's sneak into his castle!"

Okay. You're in his castle, pulling the body of the guard you knocked unconscious toward a convenient closet when you hear the Count's voice approaching. Rather than get into a duel with him, you jump into the closet with the guard, and close the door all but a sliver. As he walks by he's talking with someone ... "With the access that you give me to their little group, these Rebels will soon be an unpleasant memory. You are sure that they do not suspect you?"

Edited to clean up threadcrap with doggie poop bag.

If there's not enough to go on in a given goal or request, feel free to flesh it out to your satisfaction and then show the scene-framing from there.

"I want to get the Hand of Flame back from the Count. Let's sneak into his castle!"

I'm just gonna meta for a sec. Judd above fleshes this out with the assumption that the character is a total sneak. Tony interprets "let's sneak" as "let's say that happens automatically." That latter one interests me a lot, since it implies some things, and Tony, if you're still reading, I'd love some followup.


Me: Okay, so you want to sneak, huh? Do you actually have sneaking abilities?

John: No, but, um, nudge, wink, I have The Key of the Perpetual Prisoner.

Brandon: I do! I have awesome sneaking, and the Secret of the Skulking Serpent.

Me: Aha! Okay, then here we go. It's dark, and you're outside the castle walls, and there's guards all over the place. Your characters have become separated by a few dozen paces as you've crept from rosebush to rosebush, with Brandon's character ahead, and John's, managing to snag his cloak on every thorn, lagging behind. There's a full moon that occasionally pops out from behind some dense clouds, forcing you to time your sneakery very carefully. What do you do?

Hey, Chris skipped the sneakery too! You and Tony gotta tell us what prompted that choice.

Here's a new one to riff on. I'm using a version of this for a conflict example in Galactic, so I thought it'd be fun to see how it's framed.

"We've just been captured by Kito the Kowski, the notorious alien gangster, and we need to escape his fortress."

They're very explicit and clear about what they want: "I want to get the Hand of Flame back from the Count."

If they phrased it as "I want to sneak into the castle. That way we'll be able to get the Hand of Flame back from the Count." then I'd frame to an entirely different scene. Make sense?

EDIT: Honestly, I should have framed even more aggressively ... I should have framed to a point where they get a chance to get the Hand of Flame back. But I was weak :-(

Okay folks, new scene to frame, complete with (as Fred wisely suggests) character issues.

Internal: "I don't deserve happiness." Kyle is a (mostly) reformed bike-ganger, trying to go straight and take high school seriously, but he thinks of himself as a bad person (and so do the authorities) and so he expects to fail.

Relationship: "You don't listen to me!" Kyle keeps getting dragged into Vicky's crazy schemes, because no matter what he says she just keeps rolling in her own little world and somehow drags him along.

External: "Something is lost." Vicky kidnapped the school's goat mascot because (her words!) "He never gets to get out and play!" They took him to the park near the mall, but he got off his tether and ran into the mall.

Kyle's Goal: "CATCH THE DAMN GOAT BEFORE ANYONE REALIZES WHAT'S HAPPENED!"

Frame me a scene!

Posted By: Eric ProvostI'd really like to discuss this more, but I'm feeling like a hijacker. Should we bring it to another thread?

Done.

In my example, I asked, okay, what do you want to use to get in?

That's important, it let's the player know that I don't think he should just waltz on in, it allows the player to find a hand-hold with the castle and let's me know what they find exciting. I inserted flags to make the post make more sense to me and make it easier. The flags were the sneak skill bought up to the highest possible levels and the noble-lady.

So, from that, i know they want to sneak.

If they have the Key of Contacts (TSoY) or really high Circles (BW) or an Edge who is a mercenary (PTA) we could riff off of that.

And, we could absolutely skip to them in the room with the hand of flame, conversing with this infernal item that is beckoning them to cut off their own hand and light the world afire. Absolutely. If they had a flag on their sheet about the Hand of Flame specifically and I knew that is where the kewl was, I'd go right for it.

Honestly, I didn't feel like we had enough. We didn't have character sheets, body language or contect and all of that is so important for scene framing, vital even.

So, what I think we need for a scene frame thread:

Flags (player-authored tidbits on the character sheet, body language, excitement in their voice)
Context (what player decisions got you here)
Intent (what does the player say they or their character wants?)

Posted By: John Harper"I want to get the Hand of Flame back from the Count. Let's sneak into his castle!"

The next morning, the sun peeks through the bars of the cells where you've been imprisoned. Jed has a nasty cut over his left eye; Ginny's dress is all slashed up, and Tomas is just angry. Okay, what went wrong?

Then the players can roleplay a scene of finger-pointing and recriminations.

Posted By: Matt Wilson"We've just been captured by Kito the Kowski, the notorious alien gangster, and we need to escape his fortress."

Matt... I think that is a scene frame. ;)

Posted By: TonyLB"CATCH THE DAMN GOAT BEFORE ANYONE REALIZES WHAT'S HAPPENED!"

The goat of course heads directly for the in-mall petting zoo. Mall security is standing nearby. They have a laugh about how one of the goats escaped and are presently leading it back into the pen.

This thread is going very well! These are just the right things for us to be talking about. Fred, I totally disagree that this is all meaningless without context. But more flags are fine, of course, and thanks for suggesting that.

As I said in the first post, if there's stuff missing that you need (and duh, of course there is) then make it up. Show us what you made up so you could frame the scene (like Judd and Matt did). Or, just frame with what you've got (as Tony and others did). It's all good. Rock on with your bad selves.

"I want to get the Hand of Flame back from the Count. Let's sneak into his castle!"

"Okay, you're over the wall on the south side, in the Count's rose garden. You've timed the guard routes, and you're about to make your next move, when a guard walks back into the rose garden. He should be over by the reflecting pool by now! And he's carrying a torch. The Count's guards don't usually carry torches. He's bent over, looking for something. That's when you notice it. A glove. Snagged on a rose thorn not six inches from your head. You look back at the guard. Yeah, he has only one glove tucked into his belt. He's headed right for you. What now?"

The lesson I've learned about scene framing: start with something that can't be ignored. If I decide not to skip over the sneaking stuff, then there better be some sneaking stuff worth seeing. "Roll stealth to sneak in" is super lame. But with a strong scene frame, now we have a bang right in the player's face. Sure, now we can roll stealth and stuff, but it's about this circumstance, right now, up close and personal.

Damn, John, nice. I'm writing that shit down.

"I want to get the Hand of Flame back from the Count. Let's sneak into his castle!"

Ok. I'm the GM. You're the sole player.

I place a map in the center of the game table. The map is 2x encounters-deep from starting point (the tavern) to uber-goal (The Hand Of Flame in the Count's innermost castle chamber.)

I tell you to roll 2dx (bell curve) and add your PC's Stealth Trait Bonus or Stealth Die Roll, or whatever. The sum is how-far your PC gets before the Count shows up. High rolls could get you all the way to the treasure and a few steps back out toward the exit.

Let's say the map is 20 enounters deep, so x=10 and your 2d10+Stealth result total is 14. You made it 14 encounters-in before getting caught. We don't narrate any of this happening, yet.

You trace a route with a dry-wipe marker on the map, showing which 14 encounter-points you traversed thus far. Like drawing a path thru a maze.

I give you an inventory list of which-particular 14 encounters you've accumulated: the healing potion, the clue that the Count is your father, the secret door behind-which your long-lost sister is held captive, The Key to the Hand Of Flame, etc.

Now we're all set. Narration finally begins. We start narration with the moment when the Count shows up for the big showdown. Or even-when he's got you by the throat; dangling over the bottomless pit.

You can 'use' any of the stuff in your inventory list, against him-- with the game-mechanic advantages that entails... But to do-so, you have to Activate each item by flashing-back in the narrative & first playing-out the encounter where you obtained said item.

Anything you don't use was 'won' offscreen.