Mythusmage Opines

“When an experiment has been established, and possible variables have been taken into account, the organism will do what it damn well feels like.” Old biology adage.

Hamlet’s Hit Points.

While it’s marketed as an RPG product, it’s more a different way to view and assess creative works in literature, theater, or motion pictures. As a matter of fact, Mr. Laws’ technique is used to assess three dramatic works, two movies and a play. The three essays showing how to use the technique demonstrate its utility rather well, and Robin Laws (the author) also shows how to use it when creating a game, a setting, or an adventure

Were that all I would recommend the book. But Hamlet’s Hit Points (HHP) goes one step further and introduces a new trope. Well, at least it’s new to me. That is, story making.

An   RPG is not a story telling game, an RPG is a story making game. The players interact with an environment presented by a game moderator (GM), who takes on all the roles the players do not In play the events occur which later go to make up the story that arises from play.

In HHP Robin Laws introduces us to the concept of “beats”, moments in a narrative when  something happens that can change one or more characters or the direction of the story. The beat types are….

• Procedural: regarding a character’s goal
• Dramatic: Interactive.
• Commentary: A remark upon the situation.
• Anticipation: A waiting events
• Gratification: Having a need met.
• Bringdown: Failing to have a need met
• Pipe: Information that has an impact later in the narrative.
• Question: A puzzlement
• Reveal: Information immediately applicable.

Then there are the arrows and their directions. You have procedural, dramatic, and free floating arrows, which each dealing with a character’s goals, changes (or transformation), and the last for situation that are confused or open ended. Whether an arrow points up, down, and laterally shows whether the event was positive, negative, or plain neutral from the person in question. In those cases where the beat is ambiguous for those involved is indicated by crossed arrows.

If all you’re interested is how to use the book in your adventure design, that starts in page 178. Guides to using the technique for scenario beats starts on page 180 and continues through to page 181. Robin really doesn’t have much to say, put in his analysis of the three dramatic works he does a pretty good jb of showing how to use beats  and arrows

It’s at this point where I’d like to show a few ideas as to how beats can be used in scenario design.

Now while a term like beats work well with stories and drama, it doesn’t quite fit RPGs and scenarios. So, instead, we’ll use the word, moment. At certain moments in game play there comes a time when an event occurs that could change the fortunes of the characters, depending on how the players handle it. The moment could be procedural—where the players attempt to make progress towards their goal, dramatic—where the players engage in interaction, or any of the other moments where the players can succeed or fail or simply continue. The experience can be positive, negative, or neutral, though too many positive or negative moments cn be detrimental to the experience (players can be turned off by too easy an adventure as too hard).

When using moments in scenario design it helps to start at the beginning. In this example we’ll start with the setting, a small mining town in the old west.

The town was established near a copper mine which has recently played out. The town has 30 families, a mayor, a sherrif, a dentist, a doctor, various shops, and a saloon. The sherrif has two deputes, and there is a gang of four cowboys who hang around town. Most recently the mayor has started ranching, in the hopes the cattle can replace the now dry mine.

The mayor also has a couple of mine watching the mine, and he’s not explaining why,

That’s the basic set-up, and the moments that could arise should be fairly evident to any one reading this.

In further background, the guards are watching something for the mayor, a kachina of the Corn Mother; in her aspect as the goddess of plenty and fertility. The mayor is convinced that Corn Mother will make his cattle prosper so long as she is properly propitiated.

Small problem, Corn Mother just wants to go home, and the longer it takes the mayor to realize this and eventuate her return, the worse the consequences for him.

The cowboys?

They were hired by a Pueblo band to recover Corn Mother and get her back home. Unfortunately they don’t seem to be making much progress and Corn Mother is losing patience. So she’s working on some young Pueblo men, who are on their way to the mining town and should be arriving a day or so after the player characters do. With this information it should be easy to set up additional moments, such as the discovery of the kachina, the arrival of the Peublos and the townsfolks’ reactions to them (“‘Pache comin, and they look pissed!”), and the multi-sided tussle over Corn Mother

By fleshing out other characters in the town and giving them goals and motivation create the potential  for other moments. For example, Corn Mother can call upon the kachina of Disease to afflict the mayor’s cattle with hoof and mouth disease. Or one of the boys in town could get lost in the mine, necessitating a rescue attempt which leads to a discovery or two

With this information it should be possible to establish the most likely moments to occur, plus a few less likely ones, all depending on what the players do.

Have fun with it.