Game Structure

Scenes represent the majority of active, moment-to-moment gameplay in an RPG. A scene is denoted by a single location and/or event whereby a narrative even occurs “live” with the player character’s involvement. Here a GM sets the stage by describing the sensory details of a location, the events happening within it, and the non-player characters or creatures within it.

Within a LARP, constant scenes where players may find and interact with each other may be denotated by title cards that have a brief description of the location.

Generally, anytime a character has an opportunity to speak, they are in a scene.

Journeys describe the transitionary periods of time where characters move from one scene to another. A journey may be broken up or interrupted with one or more scenes, events that occur during the journey that pose threat or wonder. Ultimately though, journeys mark a period of time where characters are attempting to reach a new destination.

Journeys can be accentuated in several ways:

• Let players declare what actions they are taking during a journey, whether it be driving a vehicle, leading a hike, keeping a lookout for trouble or opportunity, working on crew tasks (such as cooking or tending to an engine of a large ship), or working on a lengthy task (such as studying a researcher’s muddled notes or tinkering on a new gadget).
• Players that want to accomplish specific lengthy tasks should ask the GM how many attempts they may get throughout a Journey based on the estimated length of it. GMs are encouraged to allow 1 lengthy task between events within a journey, if opportunity still allows.

A journey may be as brief as a car ride to a house several blocks away, or as long as a multi-day/week journey as the party takes a riverboat many miles upstream.

When characters are not rushed and wish to accomplish several tasks where the individual scenes are of low-narrative importance, the GM may use a montage to tackle the actions all at once with minimal time investment. Each player character can take a single lengthy task to assist the party. They are explicitly useful to acquire new information within a location or to gather materials.

A montage ends when each character has completed their task and rejoined the party. The GM should avoid starting a scene for any specific task within a montage. Instead, if a character’s action would create trouble and be fun within a scene, have the scene start as the party is reuniting, or have the reuniting party stumble into the scene caused by the one character

Shopping trips, rumor spreading/gathering, hunting for resources, scouting an area, repairing gear or healing allies, create a temporary merit or spend XP on a long-term project

Downtime periods are similar to montages in how they cover lengthy actions that may be slow or boring to cover by a scene. However, the difference is that downtime periods represent long in-game durations of minimal narrative action, often spanning days, weeks, months, or even years. For a downtime period, depending on the length, the GM will request for several objectives for player characters, with multiple rolls for each. These allow player characters to continue their own pursuits and to advance without the need to narrate day-by-day action of long lasting periods.

Downtime periods are often managed between sessions, after the end of a major story and before the start of another.