John Rogers (the creator of Leverage and author of a bunch of a nifty stuff) wrote a really great essay on “3-Point Plotting” over at Thrillbent. I recommend checking out the whole thing, but I also want to pull out a couple of concepts from it and talk about them in the context of roleplaying games.

I’ve said in the past that you Don’t Prep Plots when you’re game mastering, but a lot of what Rogers is talking about is still applicable. His basic conceit is that the plot of any given story consists of three points: DISRUPTION, REVERSAL, and CONCLUSION. (By “plot” he’s specifically talking about the causal chain of events that make up the narrative.)

Let’s start with the DISRUPTION:

THE DISRUPTION is readily apparent in episodic structure. It’s the inciting incident, the problem, the change which the characters in the show MUST deal with. (…) “Some problems can wait twenty minutes. Sometimes you gotta solve a problem in the next five minutes or unpleasantness shall occur. And sometimes there’s a guy in the room with a fuckin’ knife. Deal with the guy with the fuckin’ knife, and move on from there.”

The Disruption, ideally, is the guy in the room with the fuckin’ knife. Now, it’s not necessarily that. As you move the intensity of the Disruption back in the timeline, the tone of the piece changes. “Guy in the room with a knife” gives you danger, pulp plotting. A “five minutes from now” problem gives you urgency, but control. Part of the fun is in watching the ad hoc planning your characters throw together to deal with the “five minutes from now” problem. Competence porn lives in the world of the “five minutes from now” problem.  A “twenty minutes from now” problem gives you dread.

In general terms, the DISRUPTION is the scenario hook. And if we’re talking in terms of the Art of Pacing, it’s also the Bang that you use to launch a scene. (Rogers is primarily talking about the plotting of serialized drama, but a lot of the stuff he’s talking about can also be seen fractally throughout a narrative.)

I find that conceptual distinction between knife problem/five minute problem/twenty minute problem in the second paragraph very useful (particularly when it comes to the emotional implication of each type of disruption). A lot of GMs (including myself) find it easy to fall into a rut with the way we handle our disruptions: If the PCs are exploring a dungeon, every disruption takes the form of a “knife problem” (i.e., the goblins jump out and attack the players.) But given the exact same goblins, you can also frame that in terms of a “five minute problem” (i.e., you can hear a large group of goblins coming towards you from the west, what do you do?) or a “twenty minute problem” (i.e., the ogre told you there was a large encampment of goblins on the second level of the dungeon).

Similarly, if you’re running a Shadowrun campaign and every scenario starts with Mr. Johnson calling one of the PCs and asking them for a meeting, see what happens if you start the next scenario by having Mr. Johnson come jumping through the window of the PC’s apartment with a bullet in his shoulder and assassins on his tail! (In other words, reframe your twenty minute problem as a knife problem.)

Next up:

THE REVERSAL is best described by my friend DJ McCarthey: “It’s the moment, when the movie … becomes an entirely different movie.” Too many scripts I’m submitted have a bunch of mini-reversals, the dreaded “and then” syndrome. Stuff happens, and then other stuff happens … Even in a well-plotted story when all the plot developments occur primarily because of the actions of the characters or logical but unexpected complications of the setting (the much loved SOUTH PARK creators advice “replace all moments in the outline  of ‘and then’ with ‘therefore’ or ‘but’) the story feels flat.

It’s a subtle distinction, but a good central reversal — and the middle of the story is the right place for it — always seems to elevate even a straight-ahead episodic-style story.

Because the GM isn’t in control of how a scenario actually plays out, REVERSALS can be a lot more difficult to pull off in roleplaying games than in other mediums. However, I would point out that the lack of control can actually make for some really fantastic reversals as long as the GM remains open to them: Allow the actions of the PCs to radically reframe events.

For example, in my Ptolus campaign there was a scenario I introduced where the order of knights that one of the PCs belonged to was experiencing a religious schism. I had the leaders of both factions send messages to the PC urging them to meet with them ASAP to discuss the schism. The intended scenario was that the PC knight would choose which of the factions he wanted to join. The PC, however, decided that one of the messages had to be a honeytrap: His loyalty was being tested. So he responded by reporting the message to the leader of the other faction. FIRST REVERSAL: This is now a story about the PC accidentally betraying their friend. This was followed shortly thereafter by the SECOND REVERSAL when the PC discovered their mistake and was now faced with the need to somehow warn and save their friend.

(Simpler example: You think this is the story of Noble Hero A. But then Noble Hero A is arrested and, instead of being rescued or staging a daring escape, he’s summarily executed by the Evil Overlord. What the fuck? Of course, this sort of thing happens all the time when you’re determining the outcome of combat randomly and don’t give your PCs or NPCs script immunity.)

The other thing to keep in mind about REVERSALS is that they’re frequently based on incomplete or inaccurate information: You think one thing is happening and then the story suddenly reveals that the reality is something completely different. A lot of GMs make the mistake of having the official or unofficial mission briefing for the current scenario accurately report exactly what the scenario is going to be.

For example, the scenario the GM wants to run is a ruined castle full of soul-sucking undead. So he has the local villagers tell the PCs: “Hey, there’s a castle full of soul-sucking undead.” Nothing wrong with that, of course, but the GM could very easily stage the scenario for a major reversal by simply making the villager mistaken: “There’s something weird going on up at the old castle ruins. We think another band of gutter goblins have moved in there.” That way, when it turns out to be soul-sucking undead, the PCs will be totally surprised.

(An example of this that always sticks out in my memory: John Givler, who used to frequent the AD&D FidoNet Echo, once ran an adventure featuring an albino red dragon. The players, who heard reports of a “white dragon”, bought supplies to protect themselves from cold. “Imagine the looks on their faces when it breathed fire.”)

And finally:

… THE CONCLUSION. The end. The new status quo. Not the return of the status quo, but the new one. Whatever new equilibrium has been reached. “Equilibrium” because it’s a situation, in serialized storytelling, which should be able to be easily disrupted. The status quo is always a delicately balanced thing, little stepping stones of resolution as you leap across the river of your season-long Stories.

Effective conclusions can be one of the hardest things for a GM to pull off when they leave the broken training wheels of railroading behind them. But a lot of RPGs are essentially serial storytelling and, as a result, Rogers’ advice regarding conclusions is particularly useful: When the status quo or equilibrium returns, try to focus the group’s attention on how the events they’ve just experienced have altered that status quo. (This change can be either internal or external in relation to the characters or the group.)

You can emphasize this alteration by using it to frame the next Agenda that will disrupt the equilibrium and drive the action forward.

There are three ways to foreshadow in RPGs:

(1) Strew the foreshadowing around liberally. If the PCs might go to location A or they might go to location B, foreshadow both of them: Whichever one they go to has now been foreshadowed and they’ll think you’re brilliant. The foreshadowing for the other will simply be irrelevant trivia or, at worst, red herrings.

(2) Retroactive foreshadowing. After a few sessions, look at what the PCs have actually done / experienced. Now, take some of that stuff (particularly stuff they liked) and use it as the building blocks for prepping the next chunk of the campaign. (For example, maybe they were fascinated by the small jade statue of a knight that you included as a piece of random treasure. Make the next major villain in the campaign a knight who wears green armor.)

(3) Vague foreshadowing. Simply make statements that would be true or significant regardless of the specifics of a given event. (For example, when Gandalf says, “My heart tells me that Gollum has some part to play yet, for good or ill, before the end; and when that comes, the pity of Bilbo may rule the fate of many – yours not least.” Tolkien is very specifically foreshadowing the role he knows Gollum will play in saving Frodo’s life and completing the quest to destroy the ring. But even if Tolkien were just a GM who had no idea where the story was going at that point, he could just as easily have Gandalf say that. The statement, after all, boils down to nothing more than saying, “Gollum is going to do something and this quest is pretty important.” Which is pretty much a given since, at that point in the story, Gollum is already following them.)

If it’s all just a trick, why do it? Well, foreshadowing can be used to give a sense of cohesion and completeness to the campaign. It can also invest the players with a feeling that what their characters are doing is important. It can also be used to reinforce themes. Basically, you can use foreshadowing in a roleplaying game to achieve all (or most) of the things that it can be used for in other mediums; the only difference is that the non-linear nature of a good RPG scenario forces a different execution of the foreshadowing.

As I’ve discussed in the Art of Rulings and Rules vs. Rulings?, among other places, I think it’s important that a DM not allow any interaction at the table to become purely mechanical. Partly this is just an aesthetic preference on my part (it keeps things interesting), partly it’s ideological (rules are associated for a reason), and partly it’s because specificity and detail usually leads to creative gameplay.

Traps are a key example of this. If all you can do with a trap is make a skill check to Search for it, make a skill check to Disable it, and/or take damage from it, then the trap will be fairly boring. You can try to spice that up mechanically or (and this is easier) you can spice it up by being relatively specific about how the trap works. (For example, you might end up with players scavenging the tension ropes that reset a spike trap in order to tie up their kobold prisoner. Or draining the alchemist’s fire through the nozzles of a flame trap. When they disable the pit trap do they wedge it open or use spikes to let it support their weight one at a time? The difference will matter if they end up getting chased back down that hall by ogres.)

In following this doctrine, I’ve found that it can occasionally be difficult to imagine what disarming a magical trap really looks like. I mean, if it’s just magical potential hanging in the air waiting for an alarm spell to go off, what is the rogue doing, exactly, when they make their Disable Device check? And what are they actually sensing with their Search checks?

To that end, here are a few techniques I use when thinking about magical traps.

Magical Potential: Permanent and semi-permanent magical effects will leave a very subtle “impression” on the physical world. Careful characters with great sensitivity can detect the presence of a magical field. In some cases this may be the first step in identifying how to bypass or disable the magical trap; in other cases, it may turn out that the trap can’t be disabled without something like dispel magic (but at least the rogue can figure out where it’s safe to walk and where it isn’t).

Ethereal Hooks: Ethereal hooks are attached to spell potential stored on the Ethereal Plane. When the ethereal hooks are “tugged”, they yank the spell potential back from the Ethereal Plane and the energy of the planar transition triggers the spell effect. Ethereal hooks are particularly useful for warding physical objects (i.e., traps which are triggered when you pick up an item). They can also be attached to physical tripwires. In either case, the ethereal hooks require some physical substance and can be safely dislodged if sufficient care is taken.

Spellsparks: Tiny spheres or cylinders made from small amounts of mithril and taurum (true gold). Spellsparks impact areas of spell potential and complete the casting. A typical application would be a spellspark attached to the bottom of a trigger plate: Step on the plate, the spellspark depresses and triggers a fireball. But if you can remove the spellspark, the spell potential is as harmless as a block of C4 without a detonator. (A divine variant of the spellspark is to douse a small prayer wheel in holy or unholy water.)

Smudging Sigils: This is almost always the case for things like a symbol of death, but quite a few other spell effects can also be “stored” as arcane or divine sigils using the proper techniques. You generally can’t just reach out and smear the thing (that’ll usually trigger the effect; spellcasters aren’t stupid). But if you’ve got the proper training, then you can usually identify exactly where you need to smudge the sigil to negate its effects.

Counterchanting: Spell effects with verbal components still resonate with those chants even after the casting is complete. By using proper counterchanting techniques, a character can weaken those resonances and eventually dissipate the spell effect. (This isn’t like counterspelling: The counterchanting is too slow a process to use on a spell as its being cast. It only works here because the spell is being held in a stored state.)

Concealed Material Components: In some cases, spell effects built into traps still require the material components of the spell to be present in order for the spell to be triggered. These are usually concealed in the trap somewhere. (For example, a fireball trap might have a bit of sulfur tucked away.) If you can remove the concealed material component without triggering the trap, then the trap is rendered impotent.

Arcane/Divine Focuses: Other spell-storing techniques require the presence of a physical talisman or focus. In some cases, removing the focus will cause the spell energies to dissipate harmlessly. In other cases, it will just defang the spell — which means that it could be triggered again if the focus were restored.

Bypass Passwords: Some spellcasters will intentionally build bypass passwords into their traps. If the builder was cautious, these can be quite difficult to determine. But many spellcasters will simply draw on a common lore of such phrases. In other cases, casters may not be aware of (or simply choose not to bother changing) standard bypasses built into the most common forms of certain rituals. Like Gandalf standing before the doors of Moria, characters with proper training can often run through their stock of common passwords and discover that they’ve managed to disable the trap without any real danger. (Some caution is required, however: Some trap-makers anticipate this sort of thing and will instead have the trap trigger if certain false passwords are given.)

Telepathic Completion: This is a subtle technique. The spell effect actually reaches out telepathically and sends a completion word; the power of the victim’s own thoughts will trigger the trap. (This means that characters immune to mind-affecting effects and/or telepathic communication can’t trigger the trap. This often means that undead can freely cross through the trap.) Rogues holding a proper counter-command in their thoughts while moving through the triggering zone of the trap can disrupt the delicate telepathic effect for a limited amount of time (say, 1d4 minutes), allowing others to pass through safely.

Clockwork Mechanisms: Spells can be stored inside clockwork mechanisms. Physically disabling the clockworks will disable the magical trap. Nice and simple.

Thoughts? What other techniques could we be using here?

As a final utilitarian note: I’ll only rarely include these specific details into my notes. Instead, this is just a conceptual toolkit that I can use to explain the working of any trap as it comes up during play. Similarly, I usually don’t spend time prepping the exact mechanics of how a particular pit trap works (one door or two? where are the hinges? are there hinges? what are the spikes at the bottom made out of? etc.).

In a comment on my very old review of Fading Suns, Potato asked me to provide a rundown of how I put together my system cheat sheets for RPGs: “It sounds like a good way to get a grasp of the rules when learning/trying out a new system.”

He’s absolutely right about that. And the cheat sheets themselves, of course, also make great references at the table for both you and the players.

BULLET POINTS

My goal is to make the system cheat sheet comprehensive. That means including all the rules. Often I see cheat sheets that just cover the basic stuff that’s used all the time. But that’s actually the stuff I’m least likely to need cheat sheets for because it’s quickly memorized through repetition.

Obviously, this requires that I both cut down the amount of space the rules take up and the amount of time it takes to read and understand those rules. The quickest way to accomplish this, in my experience, is through the use of concise bullet points.

For example, here’s a chunk of rules text from the second edition of Heavy Gear:

The Silhouette system uses everyday six-sided dice to add a random element to the game. These are sometimes referred to as “1d6” in the rules, “2d6” for two dice, 3d6 for three, and so on. The same die rolling convention is used for both the roleplaying and wargaming aspects of the rules, so this is not repeated in the respective rule sections.

When two or more dice are rolled simultaneously, their results are not added together. Instead, the highest result is considered to be the outcome of the die roll. If more than one “6” is rolled, each extra “6” adds one (1) to the total. If every die rolled turns up “1”, the die roll is a Fumble and counts as an overall result of zero and no modifiers may change this value. Unless specifically mentioned otherwise, all die rolls work this way.

The totals of die rolls are often influenced by modifiers. Modifiers are added to the total of a die roll. If negative modifiers lower the total below zero, the final result is always zero and cannot go any lower. Modifiers are not applied to Fumbles.

A Fumble is a mistake or mishap that cause the failure of the action attempted. It is not necessarily caused by an error or the incompetence of the character, and may well be the result of environmental factors. No matter what caused the Fumble, however, the total die roll is always zero.

In the tactical game, Fumbles produce clear results. This is hardly the case in the roleplaying rules due to the mind-boggling number of possible actions and outcomes. The effects of each separate roleplaying Fumble must thus be described by the Gamemaster. In general, the harder the task attempted, the greater the effect of the Fumble.

This is then followed by an equally lengthy section listing various examples. Using bullet points, all of this is simplified on my cheat sheet down to the major points:

• Roll Xd6: Result = highest die +/- modifiers. (Cannot be < 0.)
  • Additional Sixes: Each additional 6 = +1 to total.
  • Fumble: If all dice = 1, result = 0 (no modifiers).

Short and sweet. Using the same technique, I’m able to squeeze the next three pages of rules into a quarter page of my cheat sheet.

DON’T INCLUDE OPTION CHUNKS

The exception to my “include everything” methodology are what I used to refer to as the “character option chunks” in the system: Feats. Disadvantages. Spells. Powers. Weapons. That sort of thing. Any small packets of specialized mechanics that are only invoked if the character has selected that packet.

These days I think of it as invoking the “power card principle”. It’s not that having a quick reference for these rule chunks isn’t useful. It’s just that it’s more useful for those chunks to be included on individual character sheets, character-specific cheat sheets, or reference cards.

To boil that down: If everybody (or nearly everybody) uses a rule, it goes on the system cheat sheet. If not, put it on the character’s sheet or in the NPC’s stat block.

REMOVE CLARIFICATION AND ADVICE

Well-written rulebooks include a lot of clarification and advice. This is good: It helps you to both learn and implement the rules effectively.

But when you’re prepping your cheat sheets, you want to jettison all of that. For example, here’s a chunk of text from Technoir:

Adjectives are open to interpretation. They are part of a language we use in the game to collaboratively tell stories. Adjectives have  a couple of designations to help us agree on how they affect our characters.

Adjectives can be applied to a character directly — representing her physical or psychological state — or to an object belonging to a character — representing its physical condition or the state of its electronics and software.

Adjectives can be positive or negative. These determine how the adjective affects the dice you roll. This process is explained in the “Rolling Dice” section starting on page 92.

A positive adjective can help the character who has it. They allow you to add Push dice to your roll. They are written in the positive column of adjectives on the protagonist sheet or stat block.

A negative adjective usually hinders the character who has it. They force you to add Hurt dice to you roll. They are written in the negative column of adjectives on the protagonist sheet or stat block. Sometimes they may only apply to a part of the body — like a broken arm or a shattered kneecap. In these cases, write the body part in parenthesis next to the adjective. Sometimes they apply to an object the character has. In these cases, draw a line from the adjective to the object.

This is all good stuff. But on my cheat sheet, it boils down to:

• Hurt Dice = negative adjectives
• Push Dice = can be discharged for each adjective, object, or tag

Where to draw the line of inclusion/exclusion can occasionally get a little blurry. For example, in my Heavy Gear cheat sheets I didn’t include the table of Typical Thresholds (3 = Easy, 6 = Difficult, etc.) because I felt like it was a useful guideline that I didn’t necessarily need to reference during play. You might feel differently.

REORGANIZING

The last thing I do when putting together a system cheat sheet is to avail myself of the opportunity to reorganize the rules.

The truth is most RPG manuals suck when it comes to organization. Related rules will end up smeared across a half dozen different chapters, forcing you to flip madly back and forth while trying to adjudicate situations at the game table. This sucks, so take this opportunity to group material together in a way that makes sense when running the game. (And, as much as possible, try to keep all the relevant rules on a single page or two so that you can look at the totality of them simultaneously.)

Unfortunately, there are no hard-and-fast rules for this sort of thing. It’s more an art than a science, and it’s mostly a matter of common sense.

REVISE

After playing a session or two, revisit your cheat sheet: Was there stuff you missed? Stuff that could be phrased better? Stuff that should be cut? Stuff that should be moved around?

Do it. Print a new copy. Repeat until you’ve refined your cheat sheet into a lean, mean running machine.

EXAMPLES

As a couple of examples, click through for the RTF cheat sheets I put together for the first edition of Fading Suns (more than a decade ago) and Technoir (a couple weeks ago). For the latter, however, you might want to also grab the official (free) Player’s Guide, which I discovered actually does a really fantastic job of cheat sheeting the system.

It’s becoming something of a cliche:

Player: I jump down to the ground.
GM: Are you sure you want to do that?

Here’s the thing: If your players are suggesting something which is self-evidently suicidal to the GM, then there has probably been some sort of miscommunication. Simple example–

Player: I jump down to the ground.
GM: Okay. You fall 200 feet, take 20d6 points of damage, and die.
Player: What? I thought the building was only 20 feet high!

That being said, I’m not a big fan of the coy, “Are you sure you want to do that?” method. While it may warn the player away from some course of action, it is unlikely to actually clear up the underlying confusion.

It’s generally preferable to actually explain your understanding of the stakes to the player to make sure everyone is on the same page. For example–

Player: I jump down to the ground.
GM: The building is 200 feet tall. You’ll take 20d6 points of damage if you do that.
Player: Ah. Right. Well, let’s try something else, then.

Although the misunderstanding can just as easily be on the GM’s side–

Player: I jump down to the ground.
GM: Are you sure you want to do that?
Player: What? Is it covered in lava or something?
GM: No, but the building is 200 feet tall. You’ll take 20d6 points of damage if you do that.
Player: I’m planning to cast feather fall. I just want the princess to think I’ve committed suicide.
GM: Carry on.

This carries beyond deadly situations. For example, if you’re running a mystery scenario and one of the players says, “I inspect the carpet.” And you don’t know why they want to inspect the carpet, just ask them.

Player: I inspect the carpet.
GM: What are you looking for?
Player: You said it rained last night at 2 AM. If the killer entered through the window after 2 AM, there would be mud on the carpet.
GM (knowing the murder took place at 4 AM): Yup. It looks like somebody tried to clean it up, but you find some mud scraped onto the molding near the window.

If you don’t ask the question and you don’t understand what they’re looking for, you might end up feeding them false (or, at least, misleading) information.

Which suggests a general principle:

If you don’t understand what the players are trying to achieve with a given action, find out before adjudicating the action.