Yesterday I posted a scenario for Numenera called “The Last Precept of the Seventh Mask“. The scenario features multiple religious sects fighting for control of the body of the Seventh Mask (a religious leader denoted by the strange, mask-like biotech growth which extrudes from their face). The basic idea is that the PCs will approach the camp of one of these sects, get hired to protect them on their journey to the aldeia of Embered Peaks, and then be forced to deal with the other factions in an orgy of violence and collusion and zealotry.

But when I ran the scenario? That’s not what happened.

THE STARSCRIPT CAVERN

The PCs in this campaign have been traveling around inside the Narthex. You don’t need to know much about the Narthex except that it’s bigger on the inside than the outside and that it teleports semi-randomly around the landscape of the Ninth World. (If you want to basically think of it as a TARDIS that doesn’t travel through time and can’t leave the planet its currently on, you wouldn’t be too far wrong. Except this particular TARDIS is populated by a group of religious zealots that the PCs have inadvertently ended up being in charge of. But I digress.)

For this particular scenario the Narthex was going to appear at a location they couldn’t predict. It was important, therefore, for the local resident expert to look at the starscape above their arrival point to figure out where they had ended up. When they emerged from the Narthex, they found themselves inside a giant cavern with walls covered in ancient runes that glowed with a faint silver light. The starscript writing described the Narthex as a holy relic, but whoever had worshiped the Narthex here was long dead and gone.

As they emerged from the cavern, however, to gaze up at the stars above, they saw the lights of a camp further down the side of the mountain.

RAVAGE BEAR DELIGHT

The camp itself was tucked out of sight behind some tall outcroppings of rock, but they could hear the distant sounds of the people who were resting down there.

The idea here should be pretty obvious: I expected them to go down to the camp. There they would meet the Bensal kokutai and Fassare would ask for their help in guarding the body of the Seventh Mask on its journey to Embered Peaks.

But that’s not what happened.

Instead, they decided to simply keep quiet, take their star readings, and retreat back to the Narthex.

So I checked my notes. What would happen next?

Well, a pack of six ravage bears was supposed to attack the Bensal kokutai encampment that night. So they did. The PCs heard the roar of the ravage bears (and identified them) as they rushed the camp.

Once again, the intention should be obvious: I expected the PCs to rush down to help the unknown campers. They could drive off the ravage bears and–

Nope.

The PCs had suffered a previous encounter with a pair of ravage bears and their bodies still bore the scars to prove it. Six of them? No, thank you. They rolled up their star charts and ran back to the Narthex with the screams of the ravage bears’ victims echoing in their ears.

IN THE MORNING’S LIGHT

The next morning the PCs came back out of the Narthex and went down to investigate the camp. The ravage bears had… well, ravaged it. Tents were shredded. Dismembered limbs and half-devoured bodies were strewn about. It was clear that several more bodies had been dragged away from the site.

The only incongruous element was the bier of the Seventh Mask, which I decided had been left undisturbed by the ravage bears. Two of the PCs — Laevra and Sheera — were incredibly creeped out by this and the biotech, mask-like growth on the corpse’s face didn’t help matters much. While Laevra, the nano, examined the mask, another PC — Phyros, a clever jack who employs magnetism — decided it would be funny to program his morphable mask to look exactly like the biotech extrusion. Laevra and Sheera, for their part, were largely unamused.

Laevra eventually concluded that there was still living activity within the biotech of the mask. The group fell into a debate about whether or not they should cut it off the corpse: Laevra had curiosity on her side. Phyros, for all of his monkeying about with the morphable mask, was legitimately concerned that it might be infectious or dangerous.

While this debate continued, I decided to have a group of Caral kokutai show up on their flying platform. Since the Caral kokutai had been stalking the Bensal kokutai, this made sense. I also thought it might offer me an opportunity to re-hook the scenario: The Caral were just as interested in transporting the Seventh Mask to Embered Peaks. Like the Bensal kokutai, the Caral kokutai would also be concerned by the other factions in the area and could easily ask the PCs for help.

Of course, that’s not what happened.

APOTHEOITES

Remember that Phyros had made his morphable mask look just like the Seventh Mask?

Yeah.

As the energy platform of the Caral kokutai swept down into the grotto, their initial hostility towards finding the PCs standing in the midst of the carnage melted away into confusion as Phyros presented himself as the Eighth Mask. This story wasn’t completely plausible: Generally speaking, the Eighth Mask — as a reincarnation of the Seventh Mask — should have been no more than a babe. But with an extremely glib tongue, Phyros managed to sow enough confusion to convince the Caral kokutai scouts they should bring their leader, Moora, to him. (It helped that he was able to spin the gory deaths of the Bensal kokutai as being some sort of “righteous fury” directed upon heathen unbelievers.) Then, with a major effect on a final persuasion role, he convinced them that there were secret rites he needed to perform with the body of the Seventh Mask in secret. That meant that all of the Caral kokutai left, planning to return shortly with Moora.

So what were the “secret rites” that Phyros needed to perform?

Well, as it turned out, they entailed grabbing the body of the Seventh Mask and hightailing it back to the Narthex.

Entering the Narthex, it should be noted, means taking a liftshaft (i.e., elevator) down into a vast, extradimensional space. Exiting the liftshaft, you enter the Nave: A seemingly bottomless (and topless) shaft crisscrossed with gantries and catwalks.

As soon as the PCs reached the Nave in this particular case, they hauled the Seventh Mask’s corpse out of the lift, sliced the mask off its face (revealing a featureless face of fresh, baby-like flesh), pocketed the mask, and then dumped the corpse over the railing into the abyssal darkness below while resolving not to leave the Narthex again until it had jumped to a new location.

THE END

The best part? This is the third time that Phyros has ended up falsely presenting himself as a religious icon or deity. He’s not even doing it on purpose!

There are probably a lot of GMs who would look at this sequence of events as a failure of some sort. The PCs “wrecked the scenario”. My preparation was “ruined”.

But if you take a moment to look at how I actually prepped this scenario, you’ll note that I was never actually wedded to a particular outcome. Instead, as I described in Don’t Prep Plots, I created a kit with a number of tools:

• The starscript cavern
• The kokutai culture and their religious beliefs
• The corpse of the Seventh Mask
• The Bensal, Caral, and Gatha kokutai
• The chirogs
• The ravage bears
• The map of the local area

And while I would have liked to have gotten the Gatha kokutai and the chirogs involved, the reality is that most of those tools got used. Virtually none of them got used the way that I had expected, but the scenes that actually played out were really entertaining and insightful and memorable largely because they were unexpected. The table was filled with laughter and there were also some really meaningful questions asked about who they had become as individuals when they ran and left the Bensal to their fate.

Now, if I had invested a lot of time into carefully preparing schedules of ambushes for the road from the Bensal camp to Embered Peaks? Then I would have wasted a lot of time and had a lot of prep “ruined” by what happened. So I’m glad that I emphasized smart prep and trusted my instincts at the table to handle the rest.

This adventure for Numenera is designed as a prequel to “The Beale of Boregal” scenario from the core rulebook. For my Wandering Walk campaign I felt the events of “Beale” would be enhanced if the PCs were already familiar with the aldeia of Embered Peaks and the peculiar properties of its numenera.

BACKGROUND

The kokutai is a hive religion made up from many different factions (each of which is also referred to as a kokutai). The kokutai as a whole is led by the Mask, a holy leader marked by his or her face: A strange, mask-like biotech growth which extrudes into a faceless visage.

Before their death, each Mask is supposed to reveal the identity of their next reincarnation in the form of a prophetic riddle. Solving this riddle (a process referred to as the Race of the Riddle) is meant to be a competition between the kokutai, with the winning kokutai (i.e., the one who finds the next incarnation of the Mask) receiving favor for their particular teachings within the religion.

The Seventh Mask, however, failed to deliver a riddle before his death. Some kokutai are interpreting this as a riddle in itself. The Bensal kokutai, however, have a different plan: They are carrying the body of the Seventh Mask to the aldeia of Embered Peaks, where it is said that the devoirs possess a machine which allows them to as a single question of the deceased. If they can uniquely receive guidance from the Seventh Mask through the devoirs, they’ll have an obvious and significant advantage in finding the Eighth Mask and securing their position of dominance within the kokutai.

THE MASK: If surgically detached, the mask functions as yesterglass when worn by another. (See Artifacts & Oddities 1, pg. 8.) The kokutai are unamused by this sacrilege.

THE HOOK

While traveling, the PCs spot the camp of the Bensal kokutai. Fassare, their leader, is concerned: Her scouts have disappeared and she has been receiving dreams of black prophecy during her meditations over the body of the Seventh Mask. She wants to hire the PCs as bodyguards and escorts to see the Bensal kokutai expedition safely through to Embered Peaks. She can offer them in payment:

• 20 shins
• Image Caster (L5 cypher, see Cypher Collection 1, pg. 6)
• Nectar Dispenser (L3 cypher, see Cypher Collection 1, pg. 8)
• Visual Diplacement Device (L5 cypher, see Numenera, pg. 297)

If the PCs push for more information, Fassare will tell them that she fears that they are being hunted by “apotheoite kokutai”. These false worshipers, according to Fassare, seek to find the Seventh Mask’s body and destroy it.

Alternative Hook: They could be directly hired to track down the Bensal and steal the corpse of the Seventh Mask. Their employer could be another faction of the kokutai (including those described below), a bizarre collector, or a time-traveling version of the Seventh Mask intent on creating a trans-temporal rumor (depending on how weird you want to get).

THE JOURNEY

1. BENSAL CAMPSITE: Where the PCs meet the Bensal kokutai for the firs time.

2. SCRUB BRUSH PASS: There’s a pass which cuts between the peaks here and heads straight to Embered Peaks. It has an artificial look to it and, unlike the surrounding landscape, is filled with scrub brush giving way to a brown and desiccated forest.It’ll cut time off the trip, but it gives unique opportunities for ambush.

3. GEYSER OF DUST: Going the long way around the mountains takes longer. Here you pass a geyser of dust which plumes perpetually thirty feet into the air. (It can be seen from about about 7 miles away.)

EMBERED PEAKS: Nestled in the palm of a mountain that looks like a giant seven-fingered hand (from which the town takes its name).

THE FIRST NIGHT

During the first night, the Bensal kokutai camp is attacked by six ravage bears. (This attack is a coincidence and has nothing to do with the hostile forces arrayed against the Bensal’s mission.)

If the PCs track the ravage bears back to their lair, they will find two ravage bear pups.

RAVAGE BEARS (x6): L4, health 30, damage 7, armor 1

• Movement: Long
• Might defense L6.
• Runs, climbs, and jumps at L7.
• Ravage Grasp: Grab foes with powerful arms. Victim suffers 4 points of damage per turn in addition to damage from attacks.
• Fury: If it takes more than 10 points of damage, reduce defense by one step and increase attacks by one step.
• Blind: Immune to visual effects. Olfactory effects can confuse and “blind” it temporarily.

BENSAL KOKUTAI

The Bensal kokutai was favored by the Seventh Mask. Their leader is Fassare, who is intent on retaining her kokutai’s favor during the time of the Eighth Mask.

FASSARE: L5, health 15, damage 3, armor 1.

• Defend at L6.
• Resist mental effects at L6.
• Gain 4 Armor for 10 minutes via a force field device implanted in her cerebellum.
• Minor telekinesis (from same device).

BENSAL KOKUTAI WARRIORS (x8): L2, health 6, damage 4, armor 1. Speed defense L3 (due to shield)

OPPOSING FORCE: CARAL KOKUTAI

The Caral kokutai think the Bensal kokutai’s plan is a great idea… they just want to do it themselves. Their primary interest is taking control of the Seventh Mask’s body and taking it to Embered Peaks. (And if they have to do it over the dead bodies of the Bensal, that’s fine.)

ATTACK PLATFORMS (L8): The Caral have access to briefcase-sized cyphers that, when activated, separate into four parts which form the corners of a solid energy field that can be used to fly through the sky with 4-6 people.

• Energy Weapon: 8 points of damage. (The perimeter of the attack platform pulses, coalesces, and then expels the energyform.)
• Duration: 1d4 hours of flight
• Movement: Long

The Caral have three of these platforms, although they’re likely to only use two in their first attack.

MOORA: L5, health 15, damage 3, dual wields a pair of ray emitters. Moora dual-wields ray emitters.

• Ray Emitter – Concentrated Light (L8): 200 feet, 8 damage, 1 in 1d6 depletion
• Ray Emitter – Concentrated Light (L5): 200 feet, 5 damage, 1 in 1d6 depletion

CARAL KOKUTAI WARLORDS (x2): L4, health 15, damage 4, armor 3. Speed defense L6 (due to shield)

CARAL KOKUTAI WARRIORS (x12): L2, health 6, damage 4, armor 1. Speed defense L3 (due to shield)

OPPOSING FORCE: GATHA KOKUTAI

The Gatha kokutai believes that the Bensal kokutai’s plan is a sacrilegious corruption of the Seventh Mask’s body. They’re more bloody-minded than that the Caral and seek to wipe out the “Bensal apotheoites” and their “Bensal heresy”.

LIGHTNING FENCE (L5): The Gatha have four reality spikes (Numenera, pg. 293) which can be activated in conjunction to form a four-sided fence of lightning  15 feet high. Passing through the fence inflicts 5 ambient damage. (They’ll use the fence in an effort to divide the Bensal’s forces and, if possible, isolate the Seventh Mask’s Body.)

MIGALA: L5, health 15, damage 5. Attacks at L6. Resists mental effects at L6. Migala carries a bandolier of detonations. Roll on the Cypher Danger Chart (Numenera, pg. 279) once per encounter.

• 8 detonations (Numenera, pg. 284; determine randomly)
• Detonation (gravity) (Numenera, pg. 284)

GATHA KOKUTAI WARLORD: L4, health 15, damage 4, armor 3. Speed defense L6 (due to shield)

GATHA KOKUTAI WARRIORS (x15): L2, health 6, damage 4, armor 1. Speed defense L3 (due to shield)

CHIROGS

A local chirog tribe has become aware of the Bensal’s pyred procession. Like all chirogs, they despise numenera. Because they consider the body of the Seventh Mask to be a numenera relic, they now seek to destroy it.

The pack leader does not speak, but is surrounded by a choir of three alpha males who speak for her in alternating voices.

CHIROG PACK MEMBERS: See Numenera, pg. 235.

PACK LEADER: L4. Has a mental attack that inflicts 4 Intellect damage (bypassing armor).

ALPHA MALES (x3): L5, health 18, damage 6, armor 4.

TACTICAL NOTES

This scenario should not be run as a simple string of three mass combats. The various kokutai and chirogs should use varied tactics; retreat in the face of unexpected danger or loss; and the like. A few thoughts:

• One group or another may attempt to suborn the PCs, either by convincing them that the Bensal kokutai are in the wrong or simply promising to pay more for their services.
• A kokutai group that has been badly damaged might try to parley with the Bensal kokutai. (Or ally with the other kokutai, allowing for a joint assault featuring both attack platforms and a second lightning fence.)
• The Bensal kokutai might ask the PCs to approach one of the harrassing apotheoite kokutai in order to form an alliance against a common enemy. (For example, the Gatha might be convinced to forgive their heresy and protect the Seventh Mask’s holy vessel from the chirog. Or the Caral might be convinced to help them drive off the Gatha in order to assure that the riddle of the Seventh Mask can be discovered.)
• The Caral might launch a stealth operation to steal the body (either during the night or while the PCs are distracted by an attack from another group). The scenario could turn into either tracking them down or racing them to Embered Peaks.

If the players are losing interest, it’s probably time to launch an all-out assault to finish things up. Or go the other way and have a kokutai appear on the horizon, give a ceremonial chant of mutual respect, and then leave (signaling the permanent end of the conflict).

Embered Peaks itself can make a good location for a final ambush. It will provide a distinct environment from the overland ambushes and encounters and you can get innocent bystanders involved and/or caught in the crossfire.

Note that the opposition presented here assumes that the Bensal kokutai will be assisting the PCs. (You may wish to use my rules for NPC allies.) Without assistance, PCs — particularly low-tier PCs — will find themselves rapidly overrun by the powerful factions seeking the Seventh Mask.

Tales from the Table: Precepts of the Seventh Mask in Actual Play

Bangs are the explosive moments that define the agenda of a scene and force the PCs to start making meaningful choices. But you don’t necessarily need to come up with all of your bangs on the fly. In fact, prepping bangs can be a very flexible and effective way to prep. In Sorcerer, Ron Edwards talks about prepping a bandolier of bangs. It’s a great image. The GM goes into a session armed with his bangs, ready to escalate and respond by hurling the material he’s prepared into the fray.

For example:

• Suzie calls. She’s pregnant.
• A death knight kicks down the door.
• Your muse starts howling. Your system is getting hacked by something ugly.
• A dark miasma creeps across the surface of the moon. The werewolves begin bleeding from their eyes.

Grab any of those and toss ‘em like a grenade.

SPOTLIGHT BANGS

Bangs force choices. If the choices forced by a particular bang – and the agenda it brings into play – are focused on a particular character, then the bang will shine a spotlight on them. One easy way to create a compelling session is to simply ask, “What interesting thing is going to happen to each of the PCs today?” Hit them with those bangs and then see what develops.

One technique for developing spotlight bangs is the flag. The idea here is that a player’s character sheet and background can tell you a lot about what they’re interested in: If they’ve handed you a PC decked out with investigation skills, you should probably be tossing them juicy mysteries. If their character background is drenched in orders of chivalry, they probably want to get involved with the royal knights. And so forth.

(Of course, this is more of an art than a science. Some times, for example, people put points into an activity not because they find it interesting but because they find it boring and would rather dispatch with it quickly. But those exceptions are rare and, when in doubt, you can just chat with them.)

KEYS

In The Shadow of Yesterday, Clinton R. Nixon introduces the concept of keys: These are motivations, problems, connections, duties, and loyalties that players select during character creation. For example:

Key of Bloodlust: Your character enjoys overpowering others in combat.

• Gain 1 XP every time your character defeats someone in battle.
• Gain 3 XP for defeating someone equal to or more powerful than your character.
• Buyoff: Be defeated in battle.

Key of the Mission: Your character has a personal mission that she must complete.

• Gain 1 XP every time she takes action to complete this mission (2 XP if action is successful).
• Gain 5 XP every time she takes action that completes a major part of this mission.
• Buyoff: Abandon the mission.

I’m going to genericize the term here and use key to refer to any mechanic or method of character creation that formalizes the creation of flags. These mechanics allow the player to specifically say, “This is important. You should use this.” And when these mechanics exist, the GM needs to respond to them with key scenes: Opportunities for those keys to be turned.

Key mechanics are often called out in a lot of indie games from the past decade or so, but you can find these mechanics lurking all over the place. For example, the keys of The Shadow of Yesterday are mechanically almost identical to the “Individual Class Awards” found in the AD&D 2^nd Edition Dungeon Master’s Guide. The rules for creating covenants in Ars Magica are similarly filled with mechanical cues for the GM to use.

KICKERS

In Sorcerer, Ron Edwards uses the concept of a kicker: A specific, life-altering bang that the player defines during the process of character creation and which basically happens at the moment that play begins: Their mother is murdered. They win the lottery. The village is burned to the ground. By getting the players involved in the creation of these “initiating bangs” you can give them a lot of agency in defining the shape the campaign will take. But even if you create the kickers independently, this is still a solid technique for getting the PCs involved in the campaign.

For example, one of the quickest ways to customize a purchased adventure is to figure out how to tie the initiating bangs of the adventure directly to the PCs (their interests, their cares, their goals). Once you’ve done that, everything else will flow naturally.

The kickers in Sorcerer are epic in nature because Edwards uses them to launch (and drive) entire campaigns, but the basic concept of the kicker can be used to create adventures on a smaller scale, too.

If you use an episodic approach in structuring your campaign, for example, you can set up your situation like a toolbox (see Don’t Prep Plots), and then figure out the big, effective bangs you can use to launch that situation into motion. You don’t have to do anything more than that. From that point forward, you can just react to what the players are doing.

In this guise it may become clear that you know kickers under a more common name: Scenario hooks. But the idea of hooking players into a scenario often seems to result in a limited palette: It’s the guy in the tavern who wants to hire them. Thinking about these hooks through the lens of the bang can help to expand your concept of what a “hook” really is. Instead of just thinking, “How can I make the PCs aware of this cool thing?” You can start thinking about how you can kick things off with a bang.

To put this more prosaically: There’s a tendency for scenario hooks to be delivered with a really weak agenda. (“Will they accept Bob’s job offer?”) Strong kickers means using hooks with more compelling agendas and higher stakes.

A TIMELINE OF BANGS

Of course you don’t have to limit your prepared bangs to the beginning of a session, either. One effective way of organizing prepared bangs is a simple timeline: Bang X happens at time Y. Other things may be happening in direct reaction to the choices made by the PCs, but the clock keeps ticking and the next bang that will complicate their lives keeps drawing inexorably closer.

I’ve also found that timelines are often a useful conceptual tool for people who are struggling to grok the concept of bangs in general. For example, here’s the timeline from an old campaign status document from my Ptolus campaign:

• 09/27/790: The PCs gain access to their Hammersong vaults.
• 09/28/790: Arveth uses the dais of vengeance on Tee.
• 09/28/790: A Pactlords strike team arrives at Alchestrin’s Tomb.
• 09/29/790: Maystra and Fesamere Balacazar approach the PCs. They want to hire them to break into the White House.

Some of these things are appointments the PCs have made. Others are ambushes. But every single one of them is a bang waiting to happen: When the clock reaches that moment, we’re going to frame a new scene, set an agenda, and bang our way into it.

(This is why I generally find it useful to keep two separate timelines in my campaign notes: One for stuff that’s generally happening in the background and one for stuff that’s going to directly affect the PCs.)

One other thing to note about these timeline entries, though: They aren’t fully-formed bangs. They’re more like bullets that are waiting to be fired. When the moment arrives, the actual bang will be customized to the circumstances of the PCs.

For example, if the PCs are at home when Maystra and Fesamere come looking to hire them, then the bang happens when the well-known members of a criminal family that bears them a grudge come walking through the door. If the PCs aren’t at home, then the bang happens when they come home and find the letter that was left for them.

BANGING ON THE TABLE

Another form of prepared bang which is often not thought of as such is the random encounter.

I’ve talked in the past about the effect OD&D’s 1 in 6 chance per turn of generating a random encounter has on dungeon exploration. If you think of each random encounter as a bang, the net effect of this system is to automatically deliver a steady pace of them. (This is another example of how the classic dungeoncrawl structure delivers effective pacing in the hands of neophyte GMs.)

One problem with this form of bang, however, is that it is so often just the same bang (“A WILD POKEMON APPEARED!”) leading to the same agenda (“Can you defeat the wild Pokemon?”). As I described in Breathing Life Into the Wandering Monster, you can solve that problem by finding new ways to contextualize the encounter.

For example, if you generate a random encounter of “8 skeletons” you can go for the predictable bang by saying, “You see eight skeletons and they attack you.” You can enrich that by varying the bang and saying, “From within the sarcophagi to either side, you hear the sounds of bone scratching against stone.” Or you can switch it up by changing the agenda and saying, “You see eight skeletons. They are arrayed around some huge mechanism of wooden gears. Some of the skeletons are pulling at levers, others are pushing on wheels.”

OD&D accomplished agenda shifts mechanically through the use of random reaction tables. Judges Guild applied similar techniques to urban encounters, separating the generation of what you were encountering from how and why you were encountering them.

BANG, BANG, BANG GOES THE RAILROAD

One risk in preparing specific, evocative bangs before play begins is that it can encourage railroading. (Or directly create it depending on the techniques employed.) A few tips for avoiding this:

First, bangs should never dictate a character’s response. In fact, as I’ve mentioned before, the best bangs are the ones that provoke the most choices. Note the subtle distinction between:

• “Saving the princess” / “Discovering that the princess is trapped”
• “Killing the wolf” / “Hearing the wolf howl”
• “Escaping the police” / “Hearing the police sirens pull up outside”

Second, as I described in my use of timelines above, you can often prepare bullets instead of bangs. These half-formed bangs can be quickly actualized during play based on the current circumstances of the PCs.

Third, don’t over-prepare the bangs. As the name implies, bangs are supposed to be short and sweet in any case. If you’re writing more than a sentence or two about your cool ideas for bangs, you’re probably investing too much in them. Invest less time in bangs (which will make it easier to let them go if the players go a different direction) and invest more time in preparing the toolbox of your scenario.

At the beginning of this I talked about having a bandolier of bangs: Bandoliers give you explosive options, but the stuff in the bandolier isn’t loaded. You haven’t pulled the pins. The bangs are there and ready and waiting for you; but when you pull them and how you pull them and where you throw them is stuff that gets discovered during play.

Boom.

Film Banging: Avengers – Alien

As in our previous installments, the standard disclaimer about using linear mediums as an example for running RPGs definitely applies: We know how these scenes end in the original movie, but if this were an actual RPG each scene could end in any number of ways.

It’s been awhile since we banged Alien, so you might want to review The Art of Pacing before we dive into The Matrix as a way of understanding how bangs can be used.

SCENE 1 – BANG: “You’re strapped to a chair. Electrodes have been attached to your head.”

The agenda is: Will Morpheus break?

This particular scene – the interrogation of Morpheus – is heavily broken up using the technique of simultaneous scenes: This single scene will thread its way through multiple scenes with Neo and Trinity. As it progresses, there are a number of interesting techniques to notice.

First, the Wachowskis use a series of escalating bangs. The injection of the silver fluid into Morpheus’ neck. The agent entering to say, “There may be a problem.” Agent Smith telling the other agents to, “Leave us.” And so forth. Note that, frequently, the Wachowskis will cut on the bang.

Note that the stakes for this scene’s agenda are laid in the next scene: If he breaks, he’ll betray the location of Zion and the war will be lost. This is an example of crossover. There’s an interesting effect achieved here by cutting on the bang, using a simultaneous scene to establish necessary exposition, and then returning to the original scene: It keeps the tension in the moment high while clearly communicating the stakes.

Another great example of crossover is when Agent Smith removes his earpiece. That moment both escalates the stakes in this scene while simultaneously having consequences in the simultaneous scenes playing out with Neo and Trinity (since he takes himself “off the grid”).

SCENE 2 – BANG: “You’re going to kill him. Kill Morpheus.” “It has to be done.”

The agenda is: Will Neo believe the Oracle?

Superficially the scene seems to be about whether to unplug Morpheus or rescue him, but that decision is pretty firmly subservient to the question of whether or not Neo will believe the Oracle; whether or not he will embrace the choice she says he’s capable of making.

The other thing to note here is that this agenda is not resolved at the end of this scene. The question of whether or not Neo will believe the Oracle remains unanswered for several more scenes as the stakes continue to escalate.

SCENE 3 – BANG: “Okay. So what do you need? Besides a miracle.”

The agenda is: What is Neo’s plan?

This is a pretty simple, very short, and extremely effective color scene. Viewed from one angle, it’s actually a very simple example of the principle of the second lull: The first lull happens when Neo asks for, “Guns. Lots of guns.” The hypothetical GM doesn’t leave the scene, however. Instead we sustain through Trinity escalating the stakes (“No one has ever done something like this.”). Once she’s done that, we hit a second lull and the hypothetical GM cuts away.

SCENE 4 – BANG: The metal detector beeps.

The agenda here is: Can they rescue Morpheus?

This bang is a beautiful example of understatement. You know he’s loaded to bear. The stakes have been cranked up repeatedly over the last 5 minutes of the film. So the only thing you need to trigger an explosion of awesome is a simple beeping noise.

This scene, as combat, is obviously a textbook example of slow time… quite literally so with the Wachowskis’ use of bullet time and slow motion cinematography.

This is not the end of the scene.

Instead, we sharp cut back to the interrogation of Morpheus multiple times over the next minute or so in order to smoothly use abstract time while hitting the interesting beats of this scene. (“I think they’re trying to save him,” it should be noted, is another example of crossover.)

And the scene still isn’t over. This single combat sequence has flowed smoothly from lobby to elevator to roof. But I want to call attention to this interaction:

Trinity: How did you do that?
Neo: Do what?
Trinity: You moved like they do. I’ve never seen anyone move that fast.
Neo: Not fast enough.

It’s a short little beat, but notice that this is a callback to the agenda of Scene 2. The question of whether or not Neo would believe the Oracle was left unresolved.

Let’s call this an agenda echo. If this were an actual RPG session, the players of Neo and Trinity would have been the ones to introduce this particular echo. But as a GM you can also use little mini-bangs like “I’ve never seen anyone move that fast” to call back unresolved agendas that are haunting your session.

At this moment, all the crossover elements that have been getting sprinkled through these scenes are abruptly brought to a climax as both scenes are resolved simultaneously and we discover that “Will Morpheus break?” and “Can they rescue Morpheus?” are actually both the same question. (Or, at least, both have the same answer.)

This true unification of two simultaneous scenes into a single conclusion answering both agendas won’t happen often, but when it does the payoff is huge and immensely satisfying.

Before the scene comes to an end, however, the mini-bang of “He’s not going to make it” triggers another seemingly impossible feat that calls back to whether or not Neo is the One. This moment lasts from “I knew it, he is the One” until Morpheus asks, “Do you believe it now, Trinity?” Which is, in itself, an incredibly elegant moment because the Wachowskis are layering in the Trinity/Neo love story. And that love story is also linked to the question of Neo being the One (due to the prophecy the Oracle gave to Trinity).

SCENE 5 – THE BANG: “They’re not out yet.”

The agenda is: Will Neo escape?

Note the interesting technique here of delivering the bang at what is essentially the end of the previous scene and then performing a sharp cut to the scene itself. I’d never really considered doing something like that in an RPG until just now, but I think it has a lot of potential.

A little later in this scene there’s an escalating bang when Trinity says, “I want to tell you something… Everything the Oracle told me has come true. Everything but this.” This has the effect of connecting this scene to the escalating meta-scene of, “Will Neo believe the Oracle?”

SCENE 6 – THE BANG: “Agent Smith shoots the phone. Trinity just barely escaped. But your exit has been destroyed.”

This is a new bang. And what makes this scene particularly fascinating is that it links, “Will Neo believe the Oracle?” explicitly to “Will Neo escape?” through his physical mastery of the Matrix and his interactions with the agents. (“He’s beginning to believe.”)

Now all of these agendas – Will Neo escape? Will Neo defeat Smith? Will Trinity love Neo? Will Neo believe the Oracle? Will Neo become the One? – have been welded into a single mega-agenda. Everything between this moment and Neo’s escape from the Matrix is a single scene despite, once again, a multitude of location shifts. (Note that the individual agendas will be knocked down one at a time as we build to the culmination of the mega-agenda: Neo abandons the identity of Anderson. Trinity confesses her love. Neo ascends the rules of the Matrix. Neo defeats Smith. Neo escapes.)

The other thing of interest here is how this single combat scene flows fluidly across all four types of pacing timing: Slow time during the fight in the subway. Then a sharp cut to the street corner where Neo steals a phone. Now time from that moment until he reaches the crowd, then a shift back to slow time for the chase through the apartment building. Abstract time moves him to the hotel, now time takes him into the hotel, and then a final culmination of slow time (once again emphasized with actual slow motion) as he enters the hotel room (and lasting until the EMP blast).

SCENE 7 – THE BANG: “The Proximity Alarm screams. There are Sentinels. You’ve got five, maybe six minutes.”

One could argue that this is actually the same scene despite its completely different locale (since the agenda is so closely linked), but in practical terms this is probably another simultaneous scene with multiple crossovers (Tank’s assistance, the need for Neo to escape before the EMP blast, Trinity’s kiss) that serve to raise the stakes in Neo’s mega-agenda scene.

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

About 15 years ago, there was a time when The Matrix pretty much perpetually lived in my DVD player. I was living in a studio apartment at the time and, whenever the mood would strike me, I’d hit the play button and let the movie spool out. I’ve probably watched the movie – with varying degrees of attention – several hundred times. Like pretty much everything the Wachowskis have done, it’s a brilliant and revolutionary piece of cinema.

Back in 2007, I mentioned the movie as part of Random GM Tips: Running Combat. I recommended that GMs watch movies like The Matrix – or 300 or Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon – while narrating the action as it occurred on the screen; as if they were describing it to their gaming group. The idea was that it would build your action vocabulary, break you out of your habits, and expand the dynamic range of your combat descriptions.

My initial intention in film banging The Matrix was primarily to focus on how they wove scenes – particularly combat scenes – across multiple locations. As I began breaking the film apart, however, I discovered just how much the Wachowskis also had to teach me about effective pacing. I was not anticipating the creation of new concepts like agenda echos, meta-scenes, mini-bangs, and mega-agendas when I started writing this essay. I’m not even entirely sure how best to realize some of these incredibly complex ideas at the gaming table.

Which I guess, ultimately, brings me back to what I said at the beginning of The Art of Pacing: RPGs are a fresh-faced medium. And we still have a lot to learn about how to master this new art.

Go to The Art of Pacing

This is something I’ve alluded to enough times that I think the time has come to write a definitive version of it so that I can just link back to it in the future.

One of the problems with analyzing the artistic techniques of RPG play is that it’s difficult to establish common reference points: If I want to talk about what effective poetry looks like, I can hand you a copy of Shakespeare or Kipling. If I want to talk about what shitty filmmaking looks like, we can all pop a copy of a Michael Bay movie in the Blu-Ray player.

But when it comes to RPGs, things aren’t that simple. Even groups running identical scenarios, for example, won’t necessarily have similar experiences.

This often means that when we’re discussing RPGs we often reach for examples from other mediums. I do this prominently, for example, in my Film Banging essays. This has the advantage of giving us a common reference point, but the danger is that these other mediums are linear and RPGs aren’t (or, at least, shouldn’t be). So when we use films or books as fodder for our RPG discussions it can be very easy for this linear nature to leak into the discussion: We know that Luke Skywalker is “destined” to go to the Death Star and blow it up because we’ve seen the movie. So if I talk about Obi-Wan saying that he wants Luke to join him on Alderaan as an example of what a scenario hook looks like, am I saying that every scenario needs to be a railroad? That every scenario hook has a predetermined outcome?

When we’re looking at these cross-medium examples, therefore, we need to be mindful of this risk. I generally try to mitigate the problem by discussing outcomes that are different from those found in the original work. If we’re talking about RPGs then Luke might save the Death Star, Boromir might succeed in stealing the One Ring from Frodo, and John Harker might kill Dracula before he ever leaves Transylvania. But we can still talk about Mos Eisley as an urbancrawl, the One Ring as a magical McGuffin, and Dracula as a memorable villain.

So if you see me using examples from other mediums when I’m talking about RPGs, try to remember that — at least for the moment — we’re going to pretend that these stories aren’t linear experiences. Even though, in reality, we know the outcome of each scene has already been predetermined, we can still use the example of the scene (or the story) without embracing that predeterminism in our play.