The Speed of Play

Disclaimer: Wine, no editing, harsh language, and passion ahead.

Speed of Play, how fast does shit take to go down. Whether I am running a game, or playing a game. The fiction must be moving foward, on multiple fronts, with no useless downtime. I want the players to actively driving the story. I don't want silly "lets go shopping", "lets just talk in a bar", "GM scenery/exposition wank", and...wait, let me talk about what I like and how its done.

One game, Burning Empires, makes the kind of scenes I'm refering to a resource. The game also outlines the four types of scenes there are. You have color, interstitial, building, and conflict. Each of these scenes has an explicit purpose in the fiction, and in the mechanics!

Color scenes are sequences that enrich the world, and the characters while providing context for future events in the plot. There are no dice rolling, no conflicts, just beats in the story that color the fiction in.

Interstitial scenes are intimate moments between two (or more characters), by intimate I mean personal. Whether its a simple rely of information, or a conversation outline someones philosophy. Either way, they establish facts known between characters. No rolling, no nothing, just important talk.

Building scenes move the action forward! They build the story in a direct manner. In Burning Empires, this is represented in a die roll of some sort. You of course, use color/interstitial scenes to setup building scenes which in turn are the direct story beats. By direct, I'm talking about players going "No, this is going to happen *roll dice*, these scenes usually flow out of color/building scenes, and are extremely useful in knowing what the players (not characters) feel is important to their story.

Conflict scenes are the climatic moments of fighting, arguing, or what-have-you. I live for these moments! However, they are hollow without the aforementioned scenes. Without color, interstitial, or building, it is just an arbitrary conflict with no investment. Yes, these scenes are important but no more than the others, in fact conflict scenes are dependent upon them. These scenes tell you what the players REALLY care about, what they really want to fight for!

*ahem*

As a player, these are useful tools to keep in mind. Knowing how to focus on what you want out of a scene, and whence you have it. Moving play to the next. As a GM, these are indispensable implicit communication between what the PLAYERS (not characters, they don't exist) want and how to keep them biting, while at the same time being able to challenge them creatively.

Fuck it, perhaps its the wine to heal my horse throat after today's intense session of Apocalypse World. But god damn, I love thinking of scene framing, structures, and goals! I feel the call of Butcher Bay now....