5.2 Setting Up Scenes

A scene must have a location, participating characters, and interaction. It ends when the interaction has run its course and the location or participants change substantially.
Most of the time, the scenes follow each other in a way that makes sense. After a fight, for example, the characters regroup, lick their wounds, talk trash about each other’s performance, worry about the consequences of their actions, and so on. But you can also kickstart scenes by making specific suggestions.

For example, a PC might have a character story seed that relates to her missing brother. She was told that someone in the city knows something about him, and the player decides that her PC will seek out that person. The GM and the player now figure out that the trip to the other character’s house wouldn’t include any substantive interaction, so they frame the scene to begin right when the PC rings the doorbell and the NPC opens the door. Or the PC might arrive at the house to find it burned down, which is not yet a scene because there’s still no interaction (unless she brought another PC and they interact as they go through the rubble).

Once again, take your cue from animated series and other sources and see how the different scenes are set up in those, with time passing in between and minor activities not being shown. Only the scenes that have some character or story purpose tend to be shown.

Some people don’t like to officially set up each scene, instead preferring to have a more organic flow of the game events. That kind of style can work, too. In this case, the GM just needs to pay more attention and, when a natural conclusion of a scene occurs, take a moment to point that out and let the players pick a benefit.