How to Run a Game (Part 14c) - Stringing Vignettes together

Let's say I have a plan for a story over a couple of sessions. Think of this like a story arc that goes over a couple of episodes in a TV series.

Each session has a "context" act to establish it's events, a "complication" act to build up its tension, a "climax" act to face the issues at hand, and finally a "conclusion" act to resolve the story and pull things back into line.

Four vignettes scattered across the episodes can help tie sessions that otherwise seem disconnected into a coherent whole.

If we're going with the four act story structure, there are a few ways we can build a long form narrative while allowing a generally freeform approach to the choices made by characters.

  

Story Act	Episode Event	Notes
E01 Act 1	Context: Let the players explore	No predefined vignette
E01 Act 2	Complication: Introduce the immediate story	Optional Acceleration vignette to prompt narrative
E01 Act 3	Climax: Resolve the immediate story element	Conflict/Dramatic vignette to face the issue
E01 Act 4	Conclusion: Reveal the aftermath	Resolve issues that arose during the episode
E02 Act 1	Context: Let the players explore, they might start looking to the long term story	No predefined vignette, maybe draw in unresolved issues from previous episode
E02 Act 2	Complication: Bring in a new immediate threat	Acceleration vignette to prompt new narrative
E02 Act 3	Climax: Resolve the new threat	Let players choose the way to resolve this rather than applying a vignette
E02 Act 4	Conclusion: Start to uncover how the two immediate threats link together	Long-term context vignette comes into play to show how the scenes combine
E03 Act 1	Context: Players should have developed links to a number of stories by this time	If players haven't built narrative momentum, give them a vignette to kick things along
E03 Act 2	Complication: The main threat and antagonist shows up.	Long term complication vignette slows things down and reveals the deeper stakes
E03 Act 3	Climax: The players face the main antagonist, but probably aren't fully ready	Story-twist vignette pivots the narrative in a way that the players don't expect
E03 Act 4	Conclusion: The players pick up the pieces after learning the truth	No vignette, the players are deciding for themselves what to do next.
E04 Act 1	Context: Another gathering of clues in the mundane world	No vignette, probably cleaning up prior issues that may cause problems leading up to the climax
E04 Act 2	Complication: Facing a series of minor threats to gain new advantages	One or more short-term vignettes building tension as the climax is approached
E04 Act 3	Climax: Facing the threat/antagonist on an equal footing	Set piece conclusion, this is probably the most defined of the scenes in the whole narrative
E04 Act 4	Conclusion: Aftermath	This all depends on the fallout of the climax.

In this table we've got 7 acts with no vignettes, 5 with short-term vignettes that affect the immediate story, and 4 long-term vignettes that pull the whole sequence together in a whole.

Not all games will follow this structure, it's just an example idea.

For example, most of the campaigns I've been running lately have unfolded over 10 weeks or so, and in most cases there just hasn't been a chance to play through four complete acts. In the gaming group's lunchtime sessions, we barely get through two or three scenes, and I'll compress an act into a scene or two. For ten weeks, odd weeks have nominally resolved acts 1 and 2 for an episode (building up the tension), while even weeks have resolved acts 3 and 4 (dealing with a climax and picking up the pieces). This gives five two-week episodes, with the extra episode slotting into the structure near the beginning of the sequence to allow a better exploration and understanding of the setting.

In the sport sessions of D&D, there is more time to get through an entire episode of the story, but since we randomise players between the sessions from week to week it become more critical to ensure episodes don't carry over from one week to the next. I function as a coordinating narrator here, and I try not to micromanage the other DMs. I allow the other DMs to run their games in their chosen style, but ask that they include two or three events out of a list of four, where these events basically serve the function of vignettes in the long term story. Over the course of ten weeks, three events establish the context for the long term story, three events establish the complications, two events are used to resolve the climax of the term's story, and the final two events describe how the events of the long-term story have impacted the history of the setting. Unless it's a major dramatic event, I specifically don't get individual DMs to narrate elements, and I try to make sure various clues are filtered through different groups in the game. This allows players to talk about their sessions afterward and piece together the deeper macro-level narrative, regardless of what might have occurred at a micro-level in their specific play session. Its a really different way of playing, but it generally seems to be working.

Long story short...

1. Think about the narrative structure, and whether you need to speed things up, slow things down, or nudge the direction in specific ways.
2. Create vignette/scene ideas that don't rely too much on player choices. Build the story around them, and make sure their actions have a noticeable impact on the world, but don't rely on them to take specific actions at specific times. Be flexible, it's all part of the narrative tension pulling on the story.