DramaD&D

[MaxWilson]

Dramatic scenes

Intro: what and why drama


We're about at the point in the adventure where I'm ready to introduce you guys to dramatic scenes. So far we've had four scenes, and all of them are [i]procedural scenes about physical challenges and danger and external conflict (outside of a character's own mind). The DM controls resolution of procedural scenes. There are also dramatic scenes, which are about emotions and relationships and internal conflict (inside of a character's mind, e.g. being both angry with someone and wanting them to feel pain and also loving them and wanting them not to get hurt).

I stole these concepts from DramaSystem/Hillfolk and have used them successfully in D&D. I'm adapting the procedures slightly to PBP format, since PBP is more asynchronous and seems to benefit from having more things like flashbacks and party splits going on, so that gameplay can still happen in a flashback even while we're waiting for something in the "main timeline" (like everybody's action declarations in bullet time / combat).

Q: Why do we need rules for drama? Isn't that what roleplay is already about?

A: I find that gameplay gravitates toward structure. By adding some rules about how players can initiate dramatic scenes and how all players (including the DM) participate in evaluating the results of those scenes, emotional scenes tend to become more likely to happen and we get to know the characters better. But these rules are a totally optional activity and you can opt out of all dramatic scenes and activity if you wish, no hard feelings. Not everyone in an adventure game has to play someone with internal conflicts.


How It Works


Since this is a PBP, the procedure for calling a dramatic scene is going to be simple: say that you want a dramatic scene, when it happens (present? flashback?), who is in it with you (DM plays NPCs, players play their PCs), and what the circumstances are. You should also have in mind an emotional agenda of some sort, e.g. "I want to make [person] feel guilty for causing [problem]" but you don't have to reveal that yet. Declaring a dramatic scene costs you 1 point of Drama if you have one (everybody starts with 0 Drama and cannot go below 0 Drama).

Then you and the other characters talk until the scene feels done (when it starts to feel like people are repeating themselves).

Then you, the player, reveal your emotional agenda and say whether you think you got what you wanted. If you say yes, then the other person receives +1 Drama from you (or from "the bank" if you were already at zero). If you say no, you didn't get it, then you get +1 Drama from them (or the bank), and if you paid a token to the bank for declaring the scene you get it back. However, if other players feel like you did get the thing you wanted, there's a vote (all players including DM get to vote and the DM breaks ties) and if majority says you got it then it's as if you said yes, you got it (other person gets the +1 Drama from you).

Drama can also be spent within a dramatic scene to force an emotional concession (2 points**) or block a force (1 point, and the forcer gets to keep their points). You can also spend Drama 1 point to "crash a scene"--force your character to be included in (or excluded from) a scene that someone else declared. These things can only be done if you have enough points for them--if you're at Drama 0 you don't have these options yet (unlike declaring a dramatic scene).


** Edit: Emotional concessions are not mind control and are not physical actions. The person controlling the character is the ultimate arbiter of how the emotion is expressed, but for example, if you have a child in prison and you have a dramatic scene with the prison warden where your emotional agenda is making him feel compassion for your son and you use Drama points to ensure he does, that doesn't mean the warden lets him out of prison, just that he gives you the emotional victory by e.g. acknowledging that what happened to your son isn't entirely fair.


The DM has to play by these same rules and does NOT have unlimited Drama points, but all NPCs share the same Drama pool. Drama earned by one NPC granting your emotional petition can be spent by a different NPC.

Therefore, you can use Drama points to make other characters including bad guys feel things, like humiliation or sympathy or guilt, even though it might or might not change their actions in the short term ("I almost wish I could set you free, but alas my plan requires your death"). Or they might spontaneously feel those things without being forced (thereby earning Drama points of their own).

As time moves on I intend to let you guys declare procedural scenes and procedural questions as well ("I want to set up a spy network over the course of the next year or so. Do they tell me about any new dungeons to loot?"; or more simply, "I want to sneak into the prison by impersonating a guard. Do I find Bob anywhere in the prison?" DM answer could be yes, no, or PAFO: Play And Find Out).

Questions? Comments?

[Unoriginal]

What happens when a player or the DM wants a dramatic scene, but they don't have points left?

What happens when drama happens naturally, without anyone saying they want to start such a scene?

Personally I see no reason to mechanise drama. Plus being told "this is drama, it makes x character feels y" just doesn't works for me.

[LudicSavant]

[I wrote this up for my Play By Post (PBP) players but feel like others might be interested too. Sharing more broadly. I've had good success with these rules in non-Internet games but this is my first attempt to adapt them to PBP format. -Max]

*snip*

Questions?

How do the rules differ between the PbP and non-internet game format?

[loki_ragnarock]

Questions? Comments?

What is the number of points required to spend on dictating a different character's feelings for that player to flip the table?

It feels... strangely adversarial and intrusive personally, but those kinds of social systems exist in RPGs because there's demand for it. This looks like it'd work for the most part in fulfilling that function.

I would - however - give people the ability to auto reject things as they pertain to their ideals, bonds, flaws, etc. Things that are core to a character identity should be untouchable. If someone's flaw is "I hate all halflings for what they did to my father, and I take delight in their suffering" then it should insulate them from someone trying to make them feel bad about halflings to a much greater extent than otherwise. If their bond is "my family is the most important thing" then that ought to likewise result in auto-rejection if someone spends points to repudiate their family.

Making that adjustment would reinforce the importance of Ideal, Bond, Flaw choices while preventing someone from table flipping being forced to play something with vastly different core characterization than they envisioned. It also means that things that slap on new bonds or flaws - like a few cursed magic items - have more standing as significant changes to character.

Thus ends my input.

[MaxWilson]

(A) What happens when a player or the DM wants a dramatic scene, but they don't have points left?

(B) What happens when drama happens naturally, without anyone saying they want to start such a scene?


(A) Normally in FTF play, I hand out 1 drama point at the start of the session and then it costs 1 drama point in order to start a dramatic scene. This prevents one player from accidentally hogging too much the table time that session--they have to wait until they get more Drama to initiate more drama. In these rules for PBP, you can see that I'm experimenting with a different rule: when you're at zero drama points, it doesn't cost drama to declare a dramatic scene. This is because PBP is asynchronous and I expect time spent on drama NOT to take away from time spent on procedure (killing monsters and such) so having one person initiate a few scenes should be fine.

(B) So far that isn't really happening in this game (people tend to just focus on adventuring) but if it did, nothing would happen in terms of Drama tokens being awarded or spent.

Why, what would you expect to happen in that case?

=======================


How do the rules differ between the PbP and non-internet game format?

In FTF games you can't start a dramatic scene without paying a Drama point, in order to balance drama time with adventuring time, and I hand out 1 drama point at the start of a session, which often goes unused depending on the player.

In PBP there isn't really a concept of "session" so I am experimenting with letting players declare drama scenes without paying instead, if they are already at zero Drama. If you keep initiating scenes and people keep granting your petitions, they'll build up dramatic power even though you stay at Drama 0. Hopefully that will then encourage them to look for ways to use that dramatic power to explore their own character's relationships with others.

================


What is the number of points required to spend on dictating a different character's feelings for that player to flip the table?

It feels... strangely adversarial and intrusive personally, but those kinds of social systems exist in RPGs because there's demand for it. This looks like it'd work for the most part in fulfilling that function.

I would - however - give people the ability to auto reject things as they pertain to their ideals, bonds, flaws, etc. Things that are core to a character identity should be untouchable. If someone's flaw is "I hate all halflings for what they did to my father, and I take delight in their suffering" then it should insulate them from someone trying to make them feel bad about halflings to a much greater extent than otherwise. If their bond is "my family is the most important thing" then that ought to likewise result in auto-rejection if someone spends points to repudiate their family.

Making that adjustment would reinforce the importance of Ideal, Bond, Flaw choices while preventing someone from table flipping being forced to play something with vastly different core characterization than they envisioned. It also means that things that slap on new bonds or flaws - like a few cursed magic items - have more standing as significant changes to character.

Thus ends my input.

Drama isn't mind control. For someone who hates all Halflings, even a minor concession like "I guess I don't want you dead right now" might be a large concession. Players decide how they fulfill "force" attempts for their PCs; the DM decides for NPCs; in either case there's no expectation the player does anything unnatural. You can't use drama points to get someone to repudiate their family (that's procedural), but if their family took your family's land and you want them to feel guilty about it, you can confront them and potentially force them to feel guilty during that scene, and depending upon how self-aware they are they might either take it out on someone else, or acknowledge the wrong and maybe even look for ways to make it right.

BTW once you're aware of this pattern it's easy to see on the Internet and in real life. Forum threads sometimes degenerate into contests between people who are trying to feel things ("I am right") and make other people feel things ("I am wrong"). This is of course insufferably boring for everyone who doesn't care which of those posters walks away feeling good or bad, and just came to talk about D&D.

[Unoriginal]

(A) Normally in FTF play, I hand out 1 drama point at the start of the session and then it costs 1 drama point in order to start a dramatic scene. This prevents one player from accidentally hogging too much the table time that session--they have to wait until they get more Drama to initiate more drama. In these rules for PBP, you can see that I'm experimenting with a different rule: when you're at zero drama points, it doesn't cost drama to declare a dramatic scene. This is because PBP is asynchronous and I expect time spent on drama NOT to take away from time spent on procedure (killing monsters and such) so having one person initiate a few scenes should be fine.

(B) So far that isn't really happening in this game (people tend to just focus on adventuring) but if it did, nothing would happen in terms of Drama tokens being awarded or spent.

Why, what would you expect to happen in that case?

=======================



In FTF games you can't start a dramatic scene without paying a Drama point, in order to balance drama time with adventuring time, and I hand out 1 drama point at the start of a session, which often goes unused depending on the player.

In PBP there isn't really a concept of "session" so I am experimenting with letting players declare drama scenes without paying instead, if they are already at zero Drama. If you keep initiating scenes and people keep granting your petitions, they'll build up dramatic power even though you stay at Drama 0. Hopefully that will then encourage them to look for ways to use that dramatic power to explore their own character's relationships with others.

So just to make sure I understand, is it correct that:

1) In PBP, you don't need Drama points to start a dramatic scene nor for said scene to have an effect?

2) In FTF, your players don't do enough drama scenes per session for them to have spent more than their 1 point per session ?

If 1) is correct, then why use Drama points in PBP format? And if 2) is correct, are drama points actually necessary or helpful to your FTF sessions?

[KorvinStarmast]

This is of course insufferably boring for everyone who doesn't care which of those posters walks away feeling good or bad, and just came to talk about D&D. Yeah, there's a lot of that going on.

[MaxWilson]

So just to make sure I understand, is it correct that:

1) In PBP, you don't need Drama points to start a dramatic scene nor for said scene to have an effect?

2) In FTF, your players don't do enough drama scenes per session for them to have spent more than their 1 point per session ?

If 1) is correct, then why use Drama points in PBP format? And if 2) is correct, are drama points actually necessary or helpful to your FTF sessions?

(1) You don't need points to start a scene. I don't understand what you mean by "nor for said scene to have an effect". Dramatic scenes don't exist to create procedural effects. They're just people talking.

(2) If that were always true, I wouldn't have to charge for starting a scene. In the original DramaSystem rules, everyone takes turns declaring the next scene--but DramaSystem is basically ONLY drama, no monster slaying, so that's not a problem. In FTF play, people who gain Drama in one scene are still free to start another scene and sometimes do, but at least it's rate-limited by only having 5 or so Drama points in circulation per session.

So I am not sure I understand your questions but it seems like maybe #1 and #2 may both be incorrect.

The primary purpose of Drama points is to balance out emotional wins and losses: highs and lows intermixed. I've hijacked them to ALSO use them as a rate limiter on dramatic scenes, but their fundamental purpose is to recreate the emotional patterns of characters in literature, for players who want to have complex characters who have internal conflicts and feel more than one thing at a time. Not everybody will want that and it's okay to opt out, but fundamentally they exist so that sometimes Hamlet is kind to Ophelia and sometimes he is cruel. See Hamlet's Hit Points (https://www.amazon.com/Hamlets-Hit-Points-Robin-Laws/dp/0981884024) for the underlying theory and examples from movies / literature.

[loki_ragnarock]

Drama isn't mind control. For someone who hates all Halflings, even a minor concession like "I guess I don't want you dead right now" might be a large concession. Players decide how they fulfill "force" attempts for their PCs; the DM decides for NPCs; in either case there's no expectation the player does anything unnatural. You can't use drama points to get someone to repudiate their family (that's procedural), but if their family took your family's land and you want them to feel guilty about it, you can confront them and potentially force them to feel guilty during that scene, and depending upon how self-aware they are they might either take it out on someone else, or acknowledge the wrong and maybe even look for ways to make it right.

I appreciate that you make that distinction in the following comments, and I'd agree that is a reasonable way to run it, but if the goal is systematize/gamify these sorts of social interactions... would it not be prudent if that sort of interaction was more explicitly called out in the proposed rules? Or if there was an example of impacting a deeply held conviction leading to minor concessions being treated as larger somewhere in the proposed set up, to create a more baseline expectation?
Or is democracy supposed to be the ultimate arbiter there, with people taking cues from how the DM explains their own voting behavior? I suppose that's easier to answer when you are the DM proposing those rules, but there might be value in making that more explicit for DMs considering adopting it for themselves.

Clarification, as I wasn't precise:
The thought wasn't Character A uses drama to convince Character B (with bond: Family is most important) to repudiate their family out of hand, ala mind control. It was more Character A uses drama to themselves repudiate Family (denying their "rightful" claim, questioning their loyalty to the nation, insinuating that character X is a bastard, maybe those refugees from those recently conquered lands due to Family's grasping for power are the real concern, what have you) towards declared AIM (feel guilt about *Family Victory*, or feel comfortable with *Family Loss*) that character B would probably have some inherent resistance towards such because core character concept would stand in the way of declared AIM.
The answer provided suffices, and takes that into account. But that's something I have to ask about/comment about because it isn't particularly clear in the initial proposal.

(If it didn't land, the table flipping thing was a joke about the inherent impossibility of such in a PbP medium. That I don't personally like social combat systems was a different aside, to provide color on my commentary. In retrospect the pairing wasn't ideal.)


BTW once you're aware of this pattern it's easy to see on the Internet and in real life. Forum threads sometimes degenerate into contests between people who are trying to feel things ("I am right") and make other people feel things ("I am wrong"). This is of course insufferably boring for everyone who doesn't care which of those posters walks away feeling good or bad, and just came to talk about D&D.
I'm not entirely sure what you mean. *Wide Eyed Innocence*

Is this mechanic an attempt to resolve such disputes in a gamified way to prevent those sorts of interactions from spiraling out? A way to butt heads without buttheads, as it were? Something similar turn limit on games of Risk so you aren't stuck playing for 10s of hours or days on this one board while the other players left hours ago, instead getting a resolution where you can just call it after a reasonable time?

[MaxWilson]

I appreciate that you make that distinction in the following comments, and I'd agree that is a reasonable way to run it, but if the goal is systematize/gamify these sorts of social interactions... would it not be prudent if that sort of interaction was more explicitly called out in the proposed rules? Or if there was an example of impacting a deeply held conviction leading to minor concessions being treated as larger somewhere in the proposed set up, to create a more baseline expectation?

I'm not sure I follow. This thread is a discussion on the rules, and my PBP players may very well read it. Even if they don't, I will explain it to them if necessary: drama isn't mind control, and here's [XYZ examples] of what you can't and can't do with it. (They could theoretically also read Hillfolk/DramaSystem where Robin Laws explains the whole system in greater depth, from which I stole these rules.)

I think you're asking for some kind of codification in the rules of what can and can't be done, but the reason it's not necessary is because (1) for the PCs, players are the final authority for how PCs react to force attempts, (2) for NPCs, the DM is the final authority and I already know that I'm not going to no-sell anyone's emotional attempts. If you try to get a lich to feel sorry for you in a dramatic scene, it might not stop him from murdering you but I'm at least going to let you get that emotional concession from the lich (feeling sorry for you), and if you manage to parlay that emotion into an opportunity ("what if I could tell you a way to get what you want without having to kill me?"), I as DM will in fact rejoice and roll with it. So, I don't see a need for extra rules, if you're even asking for them. (From what you write below I now think maybe you were just asking for more examples, not more rules.)

In response to your suggestion I've added the following to the OP and to my separate thread with my players:


Drama can also be spent within a dramatic scene to force an emotional concession (2 points**) or block a force (1 point, and the forcer gets to keep their points). You can also spend Drama 1 point to "crash a scene"--force your character to be included in (or excluded from) a scene that someone else declared. These things can only be done if you have enough points for them--if you're at Drama 0 you don't have these options yet (unlike declaring a dramatic scene).


** Edit: Emotional concessions are not mind control and are not physical actions. The person controlling the character is the ultimate arbiter of how the emotion is expressed, but for example, if you have a child in prison and you have a dramatic scene with the prison warden where your emotional agenda is making him feel compassion for your son and you use Drama points to ensure he does, that doesn't mean the warden lets him out of prison, just that he gives you the emotional victory by e.g. acknowledging that what happened to your son isn't entirely fair.



Or is democracy supposed to be the ultimate arbiter there, with people taking cues from how the DM explains their own voting behavior? I suppose that's easier to answer when you are the DM proposing those rules, but there might be value in making that more explicit for DMs considering adopting it for themselves.

Drama is a high-trust activity, and so democracy is the arbiter here. The DM's voting behavior isn't more significant than the other players' voting behavior. There's no special reason the DM has to be the tie-breaker either, it just has to be somebody.


Clarification, as I wasn't precise:
The thought wasn't Character A uses drama to convince Character B (with bond: Family is most important) to repudiate their family out of hand, ala mind control. It was more Character A uses drama to themselves repudiate Family (denying their "rightful" claim, questioning their loyalty to the nation, insinuating that character X is a ----, maybe those refugees from those recently conquered lands due to Family's grasping for power are the real concern, what have you) towards declared AIM (feel guilt about *Family Victory*, or feel comfortable with *Family Loss*) that character B would probably have some inherent resistance towards such because core character concept would stand in the way of declared AIM.
The answer provided suffices, and takes that into account. But that's something I have to ask about/comment about because it isn't particularly clear in the initial proposal.

Gotcha. Thank you for asking that clarifying question then. One of my goals of posting is to learn where the initial proposal is unclear and needs better explanations/examples.


(If it didn't land, the table flipping thing was a joke about the inherent impossibility of such in a PbP medium. That I don't personally like social combat systems was a different aside, to provide color on my commentary. In retrospect the pairing wasn't ideal.)

Oh! Yeah, that joke went totally over my head. I took it as a question about FTF play.


I'm not entirely sure what you mean. *Wide Eyed Innocence*

Is this mechanic an attempt to resolve such disputes in a gamified way to prevent those sorts of interactions from spiraling out? A way to butt heads without --------, as it were? Something similar turn limit on games of Risk so you aren't stuck playing for 10s of hours or days on this one board while the other players left hours ago, instead getting a resolution where you can just call it after a reasonable time?

No, it's not an attempt to resolve out-of-character disputes in a gamified way. It's an attempt to create more opportunities for dramatic scenes in D&D. Another example:

In the middle of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, there's a moment where Indy sits down with his father for a minute to talk about his childhood and how he wishes his dad had paid more attention to him. His dad points out that he's here now, listening attentively: "What do you want to talk about?" Indy admits, "I can't think of anything!" and his dad moves on, "So what are you complaining about! We have work to do." This brief interaction adds more context to the relationship so that later in the movie, when Indy's dad is in trouble and especially when he's shot and dying, the audience cares more about what happens in that procedural scene.

My goal is to add more moments like that, where the players talk to each other or to NPCs and establish context and relationships that raise or influence the stakes in later procedural scenes, or that open up options in procedural scenes (persuasion attempts are easier if the other person is already emotionally on your side), or that make it more likely that players will sometimes aim to defeat certain villains in ways other than just reducing them to zero HP.

Possibly-poor example: what's more entertaining, a PC who wants to reduce Biff Tannen to zero HP and hide the body, or a PC who wants to humiliate Biff Tannen every time he finds his way onscreen? Burying Biff in manure is a means to an end (escaping), but what makes it satisfying to watch is the fact that Biff hates being shown up in front of everybody. It's a possibly poor example because the main fight scene is procedural and the dramatic scene might just be a brief rider at the end of it. E.g. "Dramatic mini-scene, me and Biff as I'm riding away on my skateboard: I look back at Biff covered in manure and give him my cockiest grin," followed by "Biff screams, 'You little punk! I'll get you next time, McFly!'" Then Marty's player says, "Yep, I got what I wanted--I just wanted to rub his face in his failure" and the scene is over.

Drama points serve to draw the player's attention to those kinds of dramatic interactions. Gameplay gravitates to structure, so I'm adding structure to something that I want to be a bigger part of gameplay.

Edit:

P.S. Obviously you can do stuff like give Biff Tannen a cocky grin even without calling a dramatic scene, and that does happen in D&D, but if the DM overlooks it or doesn't realize that you are expecting a big reaction from Biff, it might not happen. Drama points give players more control of the "camera" so to speak so you can make sure these interactions do happen onscreen instead of falling flat. It might still be a poor example though.

Alternatively, Biff's player (probably the DM) could rebuff Marty's attempt to humiliate him: "Biff sits up and starts calmly brushing himself off, tracking Marty's retreat with a cool, intently-focused gaze." In this case Marty's player would probably not feel like he got what he wanted, and if other players agreed he'd wind up with a Drama point which he could potentially use later on to make sure that Biff eventually does lose his cool.