Cadogan Trahem
16th of July, 2009, 06:24
Introduction:
I have an interesting idea for telling a story in non-linear manner. I've become very fond of the idea of using time reversals as a plot device or perhaps memory flash backs.... or perhaps something more sinister to reveal significant sections of a story and slowly reveal the terrifying truth behind mysterious future events which the characters have already been subjected to. The basic principle for the story or stories is that the character/s under the control of the player/s is given a very open and interactive glimpse into events which they can take part in - however the catch is that a significant part of these events don't make much sense as a stand alone event. The plot developes by multiple "retellings" of past events which have already occured. The characters also are free to interact with these events also and there would be multiple outcomes dependant upon the players choices. The characters are confused, alone and possible afraid with many questions and very few answers. Thier actions may help determine future actions that happen in the story while a shadowy time-reversal/skipping plot device gives them glimpses into the sinister truth behind both past and future events.
A very basic 3 step example of how I want the system to work;
* Initial scene which reveals an event that is a significant outcome to the story for all intents and purposes this setting is called the "present". Players and their character do not know about the reasons, events or actions that have come lead to this outcome (this is intentional). In short this outcome is both prominent and mysterious to the story. In a sense this might be considered the "end" of the plot but it leaves the characters with alot of questions.
* The following scene in the story is a step backwards (into the "past") on the plot time-line, the players (and to some degree their characters) retain the knowledge of the "future" events but are now encouraged to participate and investigate the "history" of those events. Thier interaction helps determine specific details for the future timeline while they struggle to try and investigate the past.
* Immediately after a flashback the players are confronted with a more forward setting after the events in the initial scene of the story, for all intents and purposes this period is the "future" and the ramification of past events made by the players takes place here. The players and their characters armed with the slowly growing knowledge they gather start to see the true significants behind everything, consequently when they are put into "past" scenarios their "past selves" have more clarity and are slowly driven forward more by goals then investigation - though learning new things still aquires them significant clues for future and past encounters to come.
Problems I have with the idea:
- Very dependent on players enjoying jumping back and forth along a time line.
- The "end" of the story is almost essentially given away very early, although characters play beyond the ending to come to a real conclusion. This might immediately disappoint players who prefer to lead up to a climax rather then experience it right away.
- Player actions in "past" scenarios have significant bearing on the story in "future" scenarios, this means that if players did not meet a required outcome, the plot changes (possibly to be more sinister) and as a result the players may feel they are effectively being "punished" for not having the best possible outcome.
- Meta-gaming. While essentially not any more of a real problem here then any other game; jumping forward and backwards in time could have some significant problems if players begin to use "future" knowledge to solve problems before they are theoretically endowed with such knowledge. Ideally this isn't a problem because the premise of the story is that the "past" versions of the characters have more clarity then the present versions which are suffering from a "confused, alone, afraid" state of mind with some form of mental/memory block. I raise this issue however because, like most stories meta-gaming could easily break the flow of the story.
Thins I like about this idea:
- The story evolves in an interesting way, and players are actually encouraged to "tweak" the story more and more.
- It has the potential to be a very gritty, and dark setting with a very moody atmosphere surrounded by paranoia, mysterious events and strange happenings (which sounds awesome to me atleast).
- The focus is on the story, the investigation and the goals players make for themselves. Players can embrace the setting and push hard to try and alter things they don't like about the future and are rewarded (or punished) with the outcomes which they have to face up to at a later date.
What I would like to see from the community here, is possible feedback both positive and negative and what you think will be the major challenges for a game using this kind of plot device and maybe solutions or ideas which will help smooth out the playing. If you have experience using time as a plot device as a GM i'd like to hear how it went for you and what challenges you faced and how it affected your game.
Cheers!
Gralhruk
16th of July, 2009, 06:38
Can you give a concrete example to go along with your rather nebulous "3 step example"? I think that will help people get an idea of what sort of benefits and problems are there.
It sounds like a story started en medias res, which could be interesting. Then again, knowing how the current arc ends might also serve to make things less interesting.
LeadPal
16th of July, 2009, 07:04
Sounds really cool, but this problem leaps out at me:The "end" of the story is almost essentially given away very early, although characters play beyond the ending to come to a real conclusion. This might immediately disappoint players who prefer to lead up to a climax rather then experience it right away.The trouble is that that isn't actually a climax--it's a big opening. The game can't wind down in a never-ending denoument after the first few posts.
It could still work really well, though; it's just that the actual climax needs to appear in the third step, where the denoument would appear in an ordinary story. Probably this would be some stunning revelation that ties the entire plot together; it might even revisit the opening scene, with the new information making it even more dramatic and exciting than the first time.
Cadogan Trahem
16th of July, 2009, 07:58
I'd try to write a specific example but i'm prone to rambling on too long. Hmm, lets just say something like this (assuming that the outcome of each scenario is the conclusion of a player/gm interaction):
Present Event:
Player wakes up, trapped in a supicious place with a corpse of a familiar but currently unknown individual. The player is given a chance to investigate their surroundings to establish some base information.
Past scene:
Set before the initial events, the player's character's past-self is introduced to the murder victim, they talk and the player discovers the victims name and some information that becomes useful after the murder takes place. It is also possible that even more twists take place during this time frame which continue to linger unawsered at the conclusion of this scene.
Future outcome:
Skipping ahead of the murder in the time-line the player is introduced to the realism that he has been arrested as a suspect for the murder of the individual. Using the information discovered from the "past" scenario (or flash back if you will) the player helps ease some suspicion related to himself and the murder and helps set police onto other possible suspects. Bad news though, some of those suspects turn up dead - killed before the original murder which rules them out and raises more questions. The player's character has to experience more "past" flashbacks in order to fully solve this case.
Thats a very basic example of these idea in action, basically the insight into the past and the actions taken place helps the player make choices or change the events in the future scenario. The story in this example doesn't matter and is very basic, but I hope that helps explain how the "3 step example" works. Keep in mind too, the primary idea here is to tell a story in a new and dynamic way but I am wondering if anyone has any positive or negative experiences with playing games which use a "time warping" style of plot development.
Cadogan Trahem
21st of July, 2009, 03:48
So I take it no one has really used or have had any experience with a story telling system like this? Its not that advanced really but I was looking to see if anyone had any specific problems they have had crop up with something similar.
The basis is pretty simple, basically its like telling a linear (but interactive) story in a non-linear fashion. The goal here is to create a sort of intrigue for the players in the same way watching an interesting television show's episodes out of order might create.
The story is there, its kinda hard to follow but you know that this is deliberate because the GM is trying to keep you guessing about future events and pasts events alike. In that sense its not a very traditional medium but I was hoping it would make for an exciting investigation/horror style of play.
Mercutio
21st of July, 2009, 05:25
No experience roleplaying it, but the movie Memento accomplishes this by having the character be completely oblivious to the fact that he's done it all before.
Twelve Monkeys also follows a somewhat similar conceit, except that it's a time travel story where Bruce Willis tries to prevent a future that he ends up causing. That might be kind of an interesting take on it too. Not sure how well these would play out in an RP game because like LP said, it's a climax followed by the story and it'd be hard to keep everyone engaged.
That said, I could see a dungeon crawl where the players fight the BBEG first and in the end of the fight get sent back to the previous room, etc, with each success sending the party back into the previous room until they get to the entrance. Then it turns out to be some sort of trick from the BBEG and culminates in the real final battle where the party has to prevent the cycle from occurring again. But you'd have to leave clues for some way to beat it. Also, resting would be a tough thing to consider.
LeadPal
22nd of July, 2009, 09:06
That said, I could see a dungeon crawl where the players fight the BBEG first and in the end of the fight get sent back to the previous room, etc, with each success sending the party back into the previous room until they get to the entrance. Then it turns out to be some sort of trick from the BBEG and culminates in the real final battle where the party has to prevent the cycle from occurring again. But you'd have to leave clues for some way to beat it. Also, resting would be a tough thing to consider. I like the dungeon analogy as it's a very simple, linear framework to imagine this type of plot. Something like:
Scene 1: A huge fight against a really powerful monster.
Scene 2: The previous room. The PCs learn a bit more about the dungeon here, and we see them get ready for the huge fight.
Scene 3: The PCs are exploring the area where the monster was, and are trying to figure out why they fought it.
Scene 4: The PCs are back just inside the entrance of the dungeon, and fight the monster's minions. Perhaps they capture one of the minions to find out what's going on.
Scene 5: The PCs are leaving the dungeon now, and heading home. Perhaps now they discover that one of the minions escaped.
Scene 6: The PCs just met in a tavern, and are being informed of their mission. Tomato Surprise (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TomatoSurprise).
Scene 7: The PCs are now just arriving in town, and need to act on what they now know before it's too late.
The real thing would be more complicated, but would that be the basic plot structure you had in mind?
elmer_jok
23rd of July, 2009, 16:23
I like this type of sequence of developmental stages of the story as you described it LP. Makes it more like a director that takes a good story and makes it great by tweaking what order events are shown to the viewer. In a game like this though, even the actors will be 'in the dark' as to the true storyline and be just as suprised as the general viewer. I think you could pull a game like this off Mercutio. If you run the game and it's set in any kind of high-fantasy setting and based in D&D rules (of any version) please let me know as I'd definately be interested. I've had tons of free time on my hands lately and am playing in only one game and struggling to find players for either of the games I'm putting together right now. What I'm saying is, I'm game.
Cadrius
28th of July, 2009, 01:05
Gral has the right of it. What Cadogan describing is exactly en media res with the caveat that this is a game and part of the fun is that the characters won't have complete knowledge of the past's events.
Cadogan, to address your concerns with this style:
1. The end of the story is given away early
Doesn't have to be that way. If you really emulate this style of storytelling then what you reveal in the first scene isn't the big secret. It's interesting enough to hook the player, or reader, but doesn't give away the farm. It's the proverbial "How the fuck did we end up here?" moment.
The challenge for this I feel is setting your players up to feel empowered enough to actively contribute to the lore of the story and not feel helpless and lost (which is, of course, different from how the characters feel). I'd solve this by putting extra work on having a wide variety of clues and things for the characters to interact with in each scene. What you take of their memory you have to give back in their ability to investigate.
2. Player actions in the past affect the present.
This, I think, is where it will get most tricky. The solution I'd enlist would be to plot out the ramifications of each past scene to inform the plot of the present. As long as these changes take place entirely behind the scenes it will lend the story a fairly smooth, but malleable, feel.
3. Metagaming
No more of a problem than any other game, to be honest. The kind of player you want here is going to be the sort that's more into roleplaying and likes experimenting with different methods of storytelling. Just be picky about who you bring in.
FlatOnHisFace
6th of October, 2009, 20:01
The main problem being that the past can only really offer information and only if it is set up in a way that the characters shouldn't have access to that information presumably after it was learned. Blackouts, amnesia, a mind blank spell, or even a slight concussion can work, so it is easy enough to work that into any setting but in a matter such as the Seinfeld episode that was simply shown in reverse order, it wouldn't make sense for the fantasy world, even if it is interesting to play out in your living room. Alternatively, you can just really have the scenes take place in reverse chronological order via time travel, which is very different from just presenting them in opposite order.
This kind of style isn't suited to too many games. Obviously most role playing games take place in worlds with magic or fiction-grade technology. Aside from actual time travel (which some game settings, including a realistic world, disallow), the characters might also acquire gear, suffer wounds, or possibly die in a past scenario after they were shown in the present or future without. A major NPC (contact, foe, quest-giver) that appears in the opening showdown just might be butchered, messily, by the protagonists in the past just to mess up the story. If you get too heavy-handed with removing gear from the characters or healing them to full health between scenarios, the scenes become too episodic and players will start to feel that their actions don't have much effect on anything. This might work for Call Of Cthulhu, where information is more valuable than anything and combat is meant to be avoided. The characters might just discover that they have some mysterious tome in their satchel that they don't remember getting. In a previous scene, they don't have the tome, but they discover it along the way. Since major clues and special items are pretty easy to control, this works great. For D&D where heroes tend to loot every freakin' room, it doesn't.
Such games may also require judicious use of "The Hand Of God" which miraculously allows a character (player-controlled or otherwise) to survive certain death much like the big bad guy in every bad horror movie ever made. That is, you shoot them, they suffer more wounds than the rules allow them to live thru, but unless you actually perform an autopsy then and there, somehow they survive. Maybe they went into a coma and appear dead. Maybe they were buried alive. Think of The Bride from Kill Bill. If the players want their characters to chop off the guy's head so there is no way he lives, the building might just start falling apart around them, forcing them to flee and the "corpse" is lost. Or after being shot dead, it falls off a cliff, into a hole, down a chute. If all else fails, spies in latex masks, doppelgangers, and the even-more-cliché twin brother might just save a story.
If the characters in the present, opening scene are aware, even by situation, that they have suffered memory loss, they may well be suffering nausea and dizziness. There could easily be influencing factors that aren't terribly detailed. Perhaps while confronting the villian, they are saved by some mysterious individual. They can't quite make out who, even if they think they know who it is. Depending on who they befriend in the past (and who survives the past), this savior can be changed to the appropriate hero.
Think of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. The climactic "moment" was a long sequence that we see twice: Once in normal time, once when Harry and Hermione go back in time a few minutes. They influence events from behind the scenes. Harry is convinced that his father saves his life in the first round.
In this kind of time overlap situation, the characters can have any item they want, so long as they remember to go back later and put it there. "Remember a garbage can!" If they do not manage to put the item there, throw a rock to distract the guard that didn't catch them on their first run, or otherwise mess up continuity, they create a paradox.
Your adventure may start out with a character standing over his dead, beloved brother, wife, etc. All evidence from the scene suggests he killed the victim, but he has no recollection of doing so and the memory he does possess (from way back before the earliest flashback that will take place during the game) suggests he'd never do such a thing. Now the character is motivated to discover what happened. He may be able to magically scry into the past, travel thru time, induce hypnotic recollection (for most of the game, the hero is in a psychiatrist's office--in the final resolution, we discover if he is there voluntarily because he paid to learn what happened, or he is in prison for murder and having a routine evaluation, or if he is about to be lobotomized for being crazy). The player's choices and character's behavior will suggest whether he was pushed to murder, if he was framed, or if the killer wiped the hero's mind and fled. Much like Minority Report, this murder may be genuine, even if unlikely, but if the player's choices suggest that there is no way he committed this crime, the investigation will prove that he was framed. The hero just needs to track down the killer before the cops find him, a la The Fugitive.
In any case, the flashbacks are completely interactive. Play it out like you would any other game but with more excuse to jump from scene to scene and cloud clues that are found. In fact, you can have the players work thru the scenes until they discover the clues, but before they open the safe, read the file, see the face of the mysterious person they've been shadowing, they snap out of it. Dangle the image of the safe in front of them. Have them glimpse the mysterious figure more frequently. Have the doctor repeatedly ask him what he found in the file. In the final flashback sequence, the player discovers a clue that triggers the character's memory. Just as they venture a guess as to what happened that sounds really cool, move on to the resolution scene. Now they are in the room with the safe, approaching it in the same way they did before, picking the lock or dialing the combination, or finding the key. They remember seeing the mysterious figure's face, and flash to each scene where he appeared long enough to explain why he was there. Open the file revealing the medical documents, or view the photographs, or read the newspaper headlines that were within. The point is, once all of the clues spark an idea for the coolest possible story, make that have been the story all along. And if you are really good on your toes, throw in another twist right here so that the characters find that even with full knowledge of the truth, they've still been swindled. The mysterious figure really was the hero's wife, but the medical document is a birth certificate that reveals she is an identical twin. Or maybe Keyser Söze just left your office.
Maybe your characters aren't even aware that they are having flashbacks. But after the opening scene where they saw the dead guy, they are somehow somewhere else in a comfortably furnished but unfamiliar room, feeling hung-over, move to the window to reveal they are on the third floor of a large hotel, and that dead guy is getting into a car outside. The front desk may have some info on who it is. Or maybe they try to chase after him. Whatever the case, when they discover something--anything--they are somehow in the Iris Rose bar, it is night, and they are drinking. Their friend Jake is with them (more on that). They find that dead person at the bar. Surely they will want to talk to him, or follow him. Either way, asking him about 'that time you were sure you saw him dead' or weirding him out when he discovers you skulking after him down dark alleys, he insists the hero stays away from him, you creep. (So what was he doing in the same hotel you were in the next morning? Still, the players shouldn't yet realize that it was the next morning.) Somehow, they are elsewhere and get some bad news. Someone's family member died, or whatever you want. If nothing else, Jake lost his job. Either way, the mood is dour and they decide to go to the Irish Rose. Jake says he's never been to that bar before.
If the characters are aware that they are time travelling, either using Dr Cornelius Plott's latest device or magic or an uncontrolled supernatural flux of the continuum, you may present to them instructions that they mustn't create a paradox, or the mission fails. Perhaps they can make another attempt, but they are weakened to their soul by breaking natural order and the trauma of being spit out of the paradoxical pocket.
When they enter the time portal again, the characters suffer a cumulative penalty (+2 to all target numbers), (-1 to all dice pools), (-1 to all stats) depending on the game you are playing, for each attempt until they can get thru the scene without causing a paradox. Possible paradoxes may include: Running into your past self, killing someone that is known to be alive later (including yourself), using all the charges in your wand that you already used in the future, losing (unless it can be replaced) or destroying a unique item necessary for the sequence of events to make sense etc. Since Dr Cornelius has a time machine, he can reset the player characters to where they were before they entered the portal but they are weaker each time this happens, depending on how tough you want your adventure to be.
One possible adventure frame could be that the heroes need to stop a bad guy before it is too late, thus they are teleported thru time and space to the arch villain's lair (or place of doomsday ritual) to stop him just before he otherwise succeeds. They will be travelling backwards thru time and must reach a point where it is safe to activate the recall matrix (presumably outside the dungeon, or possibly the exact point they left from, depending on how hard you want to make it) before the moment occurs that they left. Once they are given the recall matrix and step thru the portal, they are beamed like Bill & Ted to the lair of the arch villain where one of the heroes is holding a sword, impaling the villain's corpse. Now work in reverse initiative order and have all the characters move backwards, fall up, etc. They must fight the villain in reverse (each hit restores health until he is fully healed, which signifies the first strike done to him and the combat is "over"). They must then move and fight backwards thru the dungeon, lair, whatever, until they get out. If any character doesn't make it out before the moment they entered the portal, suffers more wounds than he should survive, or they lose the recall matrix, they end up on the floor in front of the portal. Anyone who didn't step thru the portal will have seen them bounced out moments after stepping in, weakened and impaired. Undoubtedly, they must try again. If they do succeed, after activating the recall matrix, they are beamed once again into the villain's lair, impaling him as before, but now time moves forward, normally again. You just may want them to fight their way out of the dungeon again, in normal mode (but they can't fall up this time and have to go out the long way) or you might just rule that the goons are newly defeated and it is easy to escape.
This makes healing very crazy. Any character can receive healing at any time, even when not hurt, at a value equal to one less than would be fatal. That is, a 3rd edition D&D hero could be healed to his full hit points x2 +10. A 4th edition Shadowrunner could healed, even before he is hurt, up to his (full condition monitors x2) + (Body -1). If the character receives damage, he can be healed further, but still cannot exceed that value. If he suffers more damage than this between healings, he'd be dead, creating a paradox. While this may make it look like practically doubling the hero's damage threshold, it does mean that they may just end up wasting their healing resources unnecessarily. It is possible to have the characters discover healing potions or other common expendable items after they use them but doing so before could cause a problem since they can now use them after the acquire them in reverse.
This reverse sequencing screws with tactics. The GM can have any hero, on his initiative, run backwards to any point of the battlefield, hold his sword out, have a goon fall up into the sword, and add health equal to the player's damage roll. Problems can exist in games that have penalties for wounded characters. To adjudicate this, either apply an average penalty and call it a combination of wound modifier + nausea, explaining that the nausea affects different people differently and tends to be worse as you spend more time in reverse (when damage penalties will be lightest) and forget micro-managing it, or simply scrap wound penalties for this adventure--the characters don't remember the wounds after they suffer them and don't have physical damage before. If the players get all crafty on you and ask if they look beaten and bloodied, just always say yes. Just before they get out of the dungeon, have the front door guards bleed all over them.
Well, that's about all I have for now. Have fun!
-- Flat-On-His-Face
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