Words on a Screen

Introduction

Let's continue our discussion of best practices for handling certain types of scenes/challenges in PbP games with a look at adventure scenes. For our purposes, we'll separate action scenes (where the challenge and danger is posed by an active opponent) from adventure scenes (where the challenge and danger is posed by environmental conditions).

Is there overlap? Of course. But, we've talked about action scenes before, so let's keep focused on the adventure parts of action-adventure.

Features of adventure scenes

It's probably less obvious than action scenes, conversational scenes, or investigaive scenes (next month's topic), so (like we did with travel scenes) the first step is to consider why an adventure scene exists.

First: if done well, they're exciting. The PCs have a goal and there is some dangerous obstacle standing in their way. This is not only good for its own sake, but exciting scenes help engage players and keep the game's momentum.

Second: they don't rely on interpersonal violence. The hobby is in a constant churn of finding ways to keep things exciting without relying on punching other people. Adventure scenes fill that role.

Third: they allow PCs to show off certain types of skills. Games centered around investigation, violence, or personal interaction sometimes leave PCs whose skills are physically-based but not combat-based out in the cold. Adventure scenes give you a chance to let a player show off that Move skill or high Endurance.

These features directly influence the best practices for handling these scenes in PbP.

Clear dangers

Even moreso than action scenes, adventure scenes rely on the players and GM sharing an understanding of the fictional situation. When the dangers are environmental, description of that environment must be clear.

So, adventure scenes require extra attention from both GMs and players to make sure that the environment and their PCs' reaction to it are understood by everyone. To accomplish this

• Describe your PC's action or the environment in a straightforward way. Add some rhetorical flourish into your IC post if you must, but make sure that there is a sentence or two directly stating what is happening in your post.
• Liberally use OOC posts and notations to clarify what is happening in-character. In other words, the GM might say OOC: "that falling rock is going to hit Grabthar if he doesn't succeed on this Athletics check" after a post describing the rock, it falling, and where it is relative to Grabthar's position. Grabthar's player might say: "Grabthar is going to grab the rope and try to swing out of the way."
• For GMs, be especially clear when the PCs need to engage with the mechanics and when the environmental hazard is just color.

Also, if it's possible, use drawings and maps. Even a crude MS Paint sketch can help tremendously in getting everyone onto the same page about the fictional situation.

Clear stakes

Much like with the dangers that they face, it's critical that the GM and PCs have the same understanding of what the PCs are trying to accomplish in the adventure scene. "Get to the mountaintop before the storm arrives and blocks the pass," "get the idol before the cavern collapses and it's lost forever," "rescue the downed pilot before the flash flood arrives and she drowns," etc. Make sure the PCs understand what they're trying to accomplish and what's going to happen if they fail to accomplish it in the scene. There's no sense of danger without something at risk.

Keep the scene moving

We've spoken about momentum and pacing a great deal in this column, so we don't need to repeat all of the runup. The key point here is that an adventure scene exists for excitement and slow scenes are (ceteris paribus) less exciting than quick-moving scenes. Every IC post - GM or player - should materially advance the scene. If there was time to kill time it wouldn't be an adventure scene.

Mandate cooperation

Predicting PC actions is a losing effort, but GMs should attempt to design their adventure scenes to require multiple PCs acting in concert to achieve the goal. It's a poor action scene where all the other PCs look at the person with the best Climb skill and say: "well, get to it." This might help the person with Climb show off, but it's bad for momentum. It also misses an opportunity for in-character bonding (which is frequently a purpose of adventure scenes in fiction).

Can this come off a little contrived? Yes. So what? Of course it's contrived - the GM (or sometimes player depending on the system) contrives every scene.

The players will naturally look to the PCs with the most relevant mechanical advantage to take the lead - GMs don't need to plan for that. The harder part is making sure that the other characters stay involved.