So there's a discussion going on over at Story Games about "storyboarding" and is it good or bad or whatever. I don't really want to drag that discussion over here, but the thing that kept popping into my head while reading is that this seems to be a really common thing for jeep/structured freeform.

For the purposes of this thread, let's call storyboarding "outlining the scene, including it's likely endpoint, before playing it."

It seems to me that it's a technique, just like a gazillion others, and it has things it's good for, and things it's not. The thing that it draws out in my mind is that as a technique, it strongly supports "how?" or "why?" play, which are very jeep. It sucks for "what?" play, which is very story games.


James
(Also, "Hi!". I've finally gotten around to checking this out, despite being invited to way back when it was first opened.)

Posted By: blankshieldlet's call storyboarding "outlining the scene, including it's likely endpoint, before playing it."

Like I said in (one of the on-going) Story-Games thread(s), I don't believe the issue is that simple. IMO, it's very significant *what exactly* is being outlined, and towards what end.

In most examples of "outlining" that I'm aware of---which admittedly isn't saying much---the outline is used to simply set up a situation for play. If I say, "in this scene the two lovers meet, and it should end with some sort of hint that they are falling in love," that's not saying what's going to happen in the scene. In other words, in that sort of play the end of the scene isn't important, it's all the interactions in the middle that's important. The players are still creating the actual story, they're just following a preset dramatic arch.

This is like a chord progression in a jazz song. The structure ensures there's some sort of musical movement, but it doesn't outline what the actual melody/harmony/etc is going to be.

The storyboard issue---as I understand the phenomenon---is different. In those cases, the players are actually outlining the dramatic events that are meant to be important. So when they sit down to play the scene or whatever, they're no longer actually creating a story, they're just coloring or detailing the (psuedo-) script.

Now, how does various Jeep games fit into this? From Emily's description, it sounds like Doubt is more of the former. But what about Happy Ends? Do you feel it's more like the former (chord progression) or the latter (storyboarding)?

You never know what will actually happen when you play something out. The plans are just guesses.

Posted By: emilycareThis is all very different from how resolution based games usually function. Though there are mini-mapped out moments often in play: in PtA, once you've played cards, then someone narrates how the stakes get resolved. A short arc of known play, fleshed out to become real.

Or the result of Polaris key phrase conflicts.

Seth