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Raven Redstar
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Joined: 10 Mar 2009
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Location: Salem, OR
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 Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2011 2:46 am Post subject: |
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| I totally stole the opening crawl maker! Thanks for sharing! |
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Whill
Dark Lord of the Jedi (Owner/Admin)
Joined: 14 Apr 2008
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Location: Columbus, Ohio, USA, Earth, The Solar System, The Milky Way Galaxy
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Bren
Vice Admiral
Joined: 19 Aug 2010
Posts: 3868
Location: Maryland, USA
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| Posted: Sat Jul 09, 2011 5:20 am Post subject: |
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I was looking at one of my draft templates and there I used
Episode, Act, Scene.
I think I had forgotten to mention Act as an intermediate breakdown for an Episode. Reminds me of a play or the old Quinn Martin (American) TV show The F.B.I. where, IIR, the show divided the sections between each commercial into an Act or a final Epilogue. |
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Fallon Kell
Commodore
Joined: 07 Mar 2011
Posts: 1846
Location: Tacoma, WA
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| Posted: Sat Jul 09, 2011 5:38 am Post subject: |
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What WEG calls an adventure, I call an Episode. Beyond that I don't subdivide, but I do also have interludes between adventures, (mostly for the purposes of getting my player to spend all of his money on stuff he doesn't really need.)
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Bren
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Joined: 19 Aug 2010
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Location: Maryland, USA
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| Posted: Sat Jul 09, 2011 7:35 am Post subject: |
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| Fallon Kell wrote: | | What WEG calls an adventure, I call an Episode. Beyond that I don't subdivide, but I do also have interludes between adventures, (mostly for the purposes of getting my player to spend all of his money on stuff he doesn't really need.) |
We sometimes use interlude or epilogue for talking about what that may occur as a consequence of or following an adventure where such things aren't played out in character so much as agreed to. |
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Fallon Kell
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Joined: 07 Mar 2011
Posts: 1846
Location: Tacoma, WA
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| Posted: Sun Jul 10, 2011 1:44 pm Post subject: |
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| Bren wrote: | | Fallon Kell wrote: | | What WEG calls an adventure, I call an Episode. Beyond that I don't subdivide, but I do also have interludes between adventures, (mostly for the purposes of getting my player to spend all of his money on stuff he doesn't really need.) |
We sometimes use interlude or epilogue for talking about what that may occur as a consequence of or following an adventure where such things aren't played out in character so much as agreed to. |
I suppose I do that too. I use interludes to set up new adventures, introduce new characters, and provide a "downtime" feel as a counterpoint to the high energy, high stress starfighter pilot adventures.
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dadofett
Sub-Lieutenant
Joined: 28 Jun 2011
Posts: 74
Location: North Carolina, USA
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| Posted: Sun Jul 01, 2012 12:48 pm Post subject: |
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| Bren wrote: | I'm not sure the forum found this topic as interesting as I did (and do). Obviously it is important to me as well since I started the topic. And for those of you that are still interested (including myself) I thought I would recap what I think I read.  GMs vary in the degree of organization and nomenclature they use in their scenario/adventure/module design. Note that this is my recap of others' thoughts. Any errors in summarizing their thoughts are mine, not the original posters'. |
Love this thread and the summary as I like to have my play sessions very organized. As a GM, there is nothing worse to me that to see the loss of confidence in the eyes of my players if they figure out that I have no clue where the game session is going.....
Since we try to play our games more on the "shared story-telling" end of the spectrum, having a very structured hierarchy of story elements keeps the adventure flowing.
Thx!
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Fallon Kell
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Joined: 07 Mar 2011
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Location: Tacoma, WA
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| Posted: Sun Jul 01, 2012 3:12 pm Post subject: |
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| dadofett wrote: | | As a GM, there is nothing worse to me that to see the loss of confidence in the eyes of my players if they figure out that I have no clue where the game session is going..... |
Really? For me that usually just means my brothers have come up with a creative solution I hadn't expected, doing exactly what I've been trying to get them to do more often. Are your players prone to rabbit trails or something?
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vanir
Jedi
Joined: 11 May 2011
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| Posted: Sun Jul 01, 2012 10:33 pm Post subject: |
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Acts and scenes are used by playwrites (including being industry standard for screenplays). So it goes title, acts, scenes.
But in classical RPG we have campaigns, adventures and encounters.
However WEG back in 1e asserted that GMs should use the screenplay nomenclature of acts and scenes as a device to recreate a tabletop simulation of the Star Wars movie experience, after all it's why most of us are playing.
But the RPG has become much more evolved than it started, the scope of EU has increased and so has sourcebook material and the game. There is room for complicated RPG style campaigns with adventures and sidequests. Video games like the Kotor series carried RPG players from character creation through to level caps in a campaign full of sidequests and carried by subplots as individual adventures.
So now I use campaign to bring one or more of the SWU/EU backstories into the game (or a tailored one), adventures for specific plays, then acts to break them down in the screenplay/movie fashion, and scenes rather than encounters because we don't really use the random encounter table much in this game.
Campaign, adventure, acts, scenes is what I use.
Once learned by rote however you don't have to write them into your GM notes I found. Starting out with a plan like this is good to teach you to move an adventure's pace through acts, and to handle character action as scenes. It's mostly to prevent information overload whilst keeping ahead of everything you've got to keep in mind as GM in a given section of the campaign whilst you're gaming.
Not working in a structured fashion I've found you finish an adventure then retrospectively regret a bunch of hooks, opportunities and backstory that you missed because you were caught up in running the players and you've only got one brain to work with. |
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MattMartin23
Lieutenant Commander
Joined: 25 Jun 2012
Posts: 102
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| Posted: Tue Jul 10, 2012 2:16 pm Post subject: Re: What do you call the parts of your adventures? |
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| Bren wrote: | Something Whill said recently inspired this question. | Whill wrote: | | So as a base, I give 1 point per chapter (episode) of the adventure. For bonus CPs, I give from 0 up to but not exceeding the base points. |
So what do you call the parts of your adventures/scenarios?
Do you think what you call the adventure divisions matters?
Personally I do think that what you call it and how you divide up the parts of a scenario/adventure matters. For a long time I have used Scenarios (for the overall adventure), Episodes for a major section in an adventure, and Scenes for a subdivision of an adventure. But recently I have determined that I need to change my nomenclature. This has been prompted by two things.
I - One thing that prompts this is my tendency to make very, very long Episodes. Only very rarely are Episodes finished in one 3-10 hour play session. Some run Episodes run 30+ hours of play time. I find that the players find this fatiguing since they would like to "finish" an Episode and use that as a marker of progress. It also allows a sense of completion and provides an ability to mark a stopping point, temporary or otherwise. And a break of some kind is often a signal and an opportune time to award CPs. And with very long Episodes, the characters (especially beginning characters) sometimes run low or totally out of CPs.
II - In attempting to create a division smaller than an episode I have used the nomenclature "Scene." However, this isn't really a scene, but instead is probably more of a chapter which may take place in more than one location. This seems counter intuitive and does not really accord with dramatic (play, film, TV) nomenclature.
So I am now contempating organizing into the following divisions (from largest to smallest).
(1) Campaign Arcs - I haven't talked much about these. Some groups of characters have a campaign arc, others do not. I think of this as the difference between TV shows like Babylon 5 that had a multi year plan or like Buffy where a season at a time is plotted out and shows like Star Trek OS or NextGen where essentially each episode mainly stands on its own.
(2) Scenarios or Adventures (I see them as similar terms). These are for me conceptual terms based on what the play idea is and may significantly vary in length. A Scenario or Adventure should usually reach a very clear end, conclusion, climax, and stopping point. CP awards would always occur at the end of a Scenario or Adventure.
(3) Episodes each of which may take one or more play sessions to complete and which are similar to somwhere between a feature length movie or a TV episode in length. Barring unexpected player actions, Episodes typcially occur in a linear order. Since the end of an Episode should form a fairly distinct break, one may not want to end with a cliff hanger. CP awards should probably occur after the end of an Episode.
(4) Chapters each of which ideally takes about one session (more likely one to two sessions for me  ) to play out. Chapters are usually written in a linear order and depending on player actions may be (but don't necessarily have to be) played in a linear order or a decision branch controlled order. If you like cliff hangers, the end of a Chapter is a good place for a cliff hanger. This may be the most appropriate unit after which to award CPs.
(5) Scenes each of which ideally is a single location or activity inside a Chapter. Usually a 4 hour play session should be able to complete more than a single scene (except perhaps for intense combat scenes). Typcially scenes need not occur in any particular order. Depending on player actions, some scenes may not occur at all or may be heavily revised in play.
(6) Cutaways are really a special kind of scene, which is scripted in advance and since a cutaway for me typically happens off screen from the player characters it always finishes pretty quickly since it is only the me talking to myself. Cutaways often are tied to or triggered by the start or end of an Episode or a Scene.
What has been your experience as GMs and as players? |
I keep the organization as simple as possible.
To me the term Campaign Arc is defines the Campaign and Adventure from the GM's point of view. I use "such and such" Campaign more often than not to describe which Star Wars Adventure we will run. Sometimes I use the term Adventure in place of Campaign but rarely.
A campaign can have any number of Episodes. A Star Wars traditionalist (one who does not ascrible to much of the expanded universe post Return of the Jedi I might add), I enjoy my campaigns closing out in 3 Episodes of gameplay. The last session of the final episode closes out the story arc with player and GM satisfaction and most destinies fulfilled.
Episodes for me describe a group of Sessions usually about 4 Sessions in total, with a solid intro, body and conclusion. For example, I have run 4 Sessions of my most recent Campaign entitled, "Rise of the Rebellion". Each of the sessions of 4-5 hours in length, thus an Episode is 16 - 20 hours in length on average for me.
To me the term Cutaway and Scenario refers to an aspect of a session as elements. Cutaways refer scenes that are described to the players that their characters do not see to add the element of drama and excitement. Scenario refers to an event or situation the characters found themselves in during a session. Example, you are in a bar and a shooting erupts.
In short, this is how I break up the elements of the game and the terms that I use.
Best,
Matt M |
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Zarm R'keeg
Commander
Joined: 14 Apr 2012
Posts: 481
Location: PA
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| Posted: Sat Jun 01, 2013 12:00 pm Post subject: |
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Usually I go with 'Adventures' - an overall story of module spread out over several sessions (actual real-world get-togethers), divided into Episodes (or sometimes Chapters, if I'm forgetful). Interlude or 'unstructured sessions' are in-between adventure times for the pursuit of side-quests or non-'official' adventures.
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DougRed4
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Joined: 18 Jan 2013
Posts: 2259
Location: Seattle, WA
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| Posted: Tue Jun 04, 2013 2:42 pm Post subject: |
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I'm glad you brought this thread to the forefront, as it's something I find very important in my storytelling. I think I even brought up this topic before, when talking about when to award CPs.
As I evaluated WEG's nomenclature, I too was not fond of their use of the words "Episodes", as I find that confusing, especially when compared to what are called "Episodes" by the film franchise (entire movies).
I use "Campaign" to cover the entirety of the entire game that involves these player characters. Even within this group of PCs, some may drop out, or die, or retire, to be replaced by others. Things would still be considered the same campaign, which I consider to be woven in amongst the events that happened in the films (or that I've adopted from the EU).
The Campaign is made up of "Episodes", which comprise about the same amount of action one sees in the typical 2 hour movie. That might encompass anywhere (usually) from 2-3 game sessions/nights of playing.
I break down what many call "Adventures" or "Modules" as "Adventures" or "Parts". So multiple Parts or Adventures usually make up one Episode. And I generally hand out CPs (the 3-15 as recommended) at the end of a Part.
The average Adventure spans two nights of gaming, or 4 to 5 fairly long "Chapters". For me, "Chapters" replaces what WEG called "Episodes", and generally reflects a scene or two, often involving the same group of PCs in one place.
Note that this nomenclature only refects this game system. I use different terms depending on the game/genre for other systems/games.
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DougRed4
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Joined: 18 Jan 2013
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Location: Seattle, WA
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| Posted: Tue Jun 04, 2013 2:44 pm Post subject: |
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BTW, thanks for this! I already do "Opening Crawls" (to begin each Episode), so I totally plan on incorporating this next time! 8)
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