thread: 2005-11-10 : Open House: Ask a Frequent Question...
On 2006-01-26, Vincent wrote:
Scene framing.
Framing a scene just means saying where they are, who's "they," what time is it, what's going on - y'know, what's the scene, what's the sitch, what's up - and then calling the scene done when it's done.
So scene framing rules would a) determine who gets to say those things, and b) put constraints on what they get to say.
"The GM gets to say things like 'okay, that night, during Thuldar's watch, three guys sneak out of the bushes...' and 'while you're trying to get to the 7-11, Mitch, your car breaks down, and there you are by the side of the road...'" is a scene framing rule, I daresay the most common scene framing rule in roleplaying today.
"You can spend a coin to say 'fade to black,' ending the scene. The other players can contest this as usual" is a scene framing rule too. So is "the player says where the scene takes place, who's present at its start, and whether it's a Plot Scene or a Character Scene; the GM takes this input and opens the scene with a few establishing sentences." So is "you can spend one Spiff point to bring any named NPC you want into the scene, as the GM is establishing it."
As a designer, if you don't design scene framing rules, your players will almost certainly default to "the GM gets to say..."
This makes AJF go "Is this where its at for playerless play?"
I'm getting the sense that Scene Framing is one specific instance of a range of techniques that are going to be a backbone of playerless play: namely, introduction of content that doesn't enter via an agent (character). Scene Framing is when this happens at the start of a, uh scene. In director stance, you can often introduce content at other places. It may well be more finely specified - a family of techniques? But now brain no work.
This makes VB go "scene framing rules are the new frontier, for sure."
Whether it's about playerless play or not, I'm very much in favor of the current boom in scene framing rules.
