In a dramatic scene, characters engage in verbal conflict over the granting or withholding of a desired emotional reward. The character seeking the reward is the petitioner. This role is more often than not taken by the scene’s caller. The character deciding whether or not to extend it is the granter.
Tokens
All participants, including the GM, collect and spend drama tokens throughout the course of an episode. Everyone starts each episode with zero tokens. A central pile, or kitty, contains an inexhaustible supply of tokens. We recommend blue tokens to represent drama tokens, but any color other than red, yellow or green will do.
Drama tokens left unspent at the end of a session contribute to a player’s chance of winning bennies, then revert to the kitty. They do not carry over to the next episode.
Tokens do not represent or simulate anything in the fictional reality you’re collectively depicting. Instead they bend events toward a satisfying literary rhythm, where characters sometimes prevail and are sometimes defeated in emotional confrontations. They overcome gamers’ natural tendency to always dig in when challenged, forcing them to play their characters like real people, impelled by emotional need and obligation.
Calling Dramatic Scenes
Call a dramatic scene by specifying:
- the cast
- the location
- how much time has passed since the previous scene (if any)
- The final ingredient for a dramatic scene is intent—what the petitioner wants, consciously or otherwise, from the granter.
If you are calling a scene in which your character acts as petitioner, as is the norm, simply go ahead and enter into the scene, without announcing your intent.
You don’t have to make your character the petitioner, although it costs you a drama token if he or she isn’t present at all. You can designate a recurring character, or another PC, as the petitioner. When doing this, suggest what it is that the petitioner wants. The participant playing the character may ask for an adjustment, or allow the character’s intent to drift as the scene plays out and the granter responds.
Never call a dramatic scene between two recurring characters. No one wants to listen to the GM talk to herself, especially not the GM.
When the GM calls a dramatic scene, she may cast any participants in the scene, provided at least one of them is a player character. The GM chooses the petitioner and granter as her conception of the scene demands.
Playing and Resolving Dramatic Scenes
Players portray their characters through dialogue until the petition is either granted, or it becomes apparent that it has been conclusively rebuffed, or is losing tension and energy. This occurs when the players in the scene start to repeat themselves, or players not taking part in the scene grow visibly bored or restless. Where necessary, the GM steps in to declare the scene concluded, by asking the petitioner if she thinks she got a significant concession.
If the answer is yes, the petition is considered granted, even if other players feel that the petitioner didn’t get everything he or she wanted. Neither the caller or the other players in general may gainsay the petitioner’s player on this point.
If the answer is no, and the rest of the group agrees with the petitioner’s assessment, the petition is considered to have been refused.
If the answer is no, but other participants feel that a significant shift in emotional power from granter to petitioner occurred, the group, including GM, votes. The scene’s caller gets an extra tie-breaking vote, where necessary.
Gaining Tokens
Any dramatic scene ends with an exchange of one or more drama tokens.
If the petition is willingly granted by the participant, the granter earns a drama token--from the petitioner if he has one, or from the kitty if not.
If the granter refuses, the petitioner gains the token—from the granter if she has one, or from the kitty if not.
Forcing
If the player (or GM) playing the granter chooses not to relent, the petitioner may, by spending two drama tokens, force the granter to grant a significant emotional concession. This may still withhold some part of what the petitioner seeks, especially on the practical level, but must nonetheless represent a meaningful shift of emotional power from the granter to the petitioner.
At the end of the scene, the forced granter receives the two drama tokens from the petitioner, provided the force actually takes place.
The granter’s player may block a force by spending three drama tokens. These are paid to the petitioner, at the end of the scene. The petitioner does not spend the 2 tokens that would have been spent on the force, for a net gain of 3.
After a force occurs or is canceled, the same characters may not, for the duration of the episode, be called into similar scenes intended to reverse the original result. Some significant new element, as judged by challenge voting if need be, must be added to make the scene a true new development, and not just another kick at the can.
Supporting or Blocking a Force
Players not directly involved in a scene may support an attempt to force, or cancel a force, by giving their drama tokens to the current petitioner or granter—provided their character is present in the scene. They describe what they say or do to make the force more or less likely.
If you support a force which the granter then blocks, you get your tokens back.
Concessions and Emotional Power
A grant needn’t give the petitioner everything he wanted in exactly the terms he wanted. Any major shift in emotional power from granter to petitioner counts as a grant. Sometimes you'll reach clear consensus on what constitutes a major shift; in a few cases you’ll have to vote.
Even a force must respect the bounds of the granter’s established character. You can’t, and shouldn’t expect to, turn an avowed enemy into a loyal friend in a single scene. Forced petitions represent the character giving in for the moment, not undergoing a life-changing epiphany. They certainly don’t play like hypnosis or mind control. A force causes the subject to grudgingly act in a friendly, or friendlier than usual, manner in this particular instance.
No Contest Scenes
When you act as granter, you may find, as a scene plays out, that your character has no reason to oppose a petitioner’s request. If so, you can declare this a no-contest scene, bringing it to a quick conclusion. The caller may then call a new scene—hopefully one in which real conflict does occur. If at a loss for a replacement scene, the caller may choose to pass to the next caller in the established precedence order.
Two-Way Exchanges
At the end of a dramatic scene, the GM and participants might conclude that it was a two-way exchange, in which each character sought an emotional payoff, which either was or wasn’t granted.
If both participants were a) denied or b) got the payoffs they sought, each receives a drama token. If both players have a drama token already, this cancels out—you needn’t actually trade tokens. If one or more have zero drama tokens, however, the missing token(s) come from the kitty.
If one petition was granted and the other denied, the denying player pays the granting player two tokens. If the denier has less than 2 tokens, the deficit is made up from the kitty.
Two-way exchanges may prove particularly common in scenes started with a soft open (see below).
Multiple Petitioners
Sometimes more than two characters will take part in one dramatic exchange—or several dramatic exchanges will overlap and interweave with one another. This might happen when:
- a player jumps into a dramatic scene
- a dramatic scene arises organically from a conference scene (see below)
Where possible, the GM avoids having recurring characters take major roles in these multi-layered dramatic scenes. Ideally, they act only in a supporting capacity, answering questions or offering opinions without seeking emotional rewards of their own. Sometimes the story demands that they take part as granters. The GM can almost always ensure that they don’t act as petitioners.
After the various discussions come to a head and appear to resolve themselves, ask whether this was a dramatic scene at all. Do one or more players feel that their characters sought an emotional payoff?
If not, it was an expository scene setting up future events, probably of a procedural nature. No drama tokens are exchanged. Call the next scene.
If only one player answers in the affirmative, this is an ordinary drama scene with onlookers. Determine the distribution of tokens as usual. This is the most common case: even in a group scene, one character’s petition usually dominates, to a degree that all participants instinctively acknowledge.
If multiple players feel they sought emotional reward, the group, led by the GM, continue as follows.
The GM quizzes each participating player, in a newly drawn precedence order, asking:
- what they most wanted, emotionally, in the scene
- who they wanted it from
- and whether they got it
If they got what they wanted, the specified player granted their petition and earns a drama token—from the petitioning player if he or she has one, or from the kitty if not.
If they didn’t get what they wanted, the specified player refused their petition. The petitioner earns a drama token—from the refuser of the grant if he or she has one, or from the kitty if not.
A group scene might easily come to one overall conclusion about a practical course of action, with various different emotional ramifications for the those taking part.
Petitioning For Practical Favors
Any scene involving a main cast member or recurring character is by definition dramatic. Even if the granter seems to be asking for a practical favor, the subtext of the scene is always emotional. Depending on how self-aware the characters are, they may or may not realize this, but it’s true all the same.
The scene counts as a grant if the promise to perform the favor feels like a significant concession to either the petitioner, or to the group at large. Whether the favor is later performed to the petitioner’s satisfaction does not retroactively alter the outcome of the scene—but probably provokes a new scene in which the disappointed petitioner returns to the granter to express a grievance.
Drama with Recurring Characters
The GM plays all recurring characters drawing on a single pool of drama tokens. Like any player, the GM must earn drama points by granting or by losing petitions.
Soft Opens
You can start a scene without specifying a situation. Instead the characters cast in the scene simply start talking to one another, and the scene works organically toward a dramatic conflict. This is called a soft open.
Conference Scenes
On occasion you’ll want to call a particular type of soft open, the conference scene, in which all or most of the main characters discuss the issues currently before them. This might or might not resolve into a dramatic scene. It may instead simply work as an establishing scene, setting up subsequent dramatic and/or procedural scenes.
