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In the last couple installments, we learned
how to build a story around our character’s traits, adding
sub-plots to the campaign, choosing an inciting incident, and
finally, use of the McGuffin to help drive the story. If you’ll
remember, Jak Nightwing and his Wookie co-pilot, Rajbacca, have
been attacked in a market on Malestair and forced into helping
the Imperials find Jak’s old Rebel fighter squadron. Worse yet,
Rajbacca may have set the whole thing up to get the bounty on
Jak’s head. In this article, we’re going to learn about the
importance of turning points and the dire necessity of outlining
our adventure.
Simply put, a turning point is a point in the story
from which there is no return. It is the point at which the
character’s lives can’t and won’t be the same. Every story has
them, and if we’re going to get specific, every movie has two of
them. In “A New Hope”, for example, the first turning point
occurs when Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru die and Luke decides to
leave Tatooine. The second turning point happens when Obi-Wan
vanishes and the team escapes the Death Star with Princess Leia.
In “The Empire Strikes Back”, the first turning point happens
when the Rebels escape Hoth and Luke heads to Endor for his Jedi
training. The second turning point is when Han is encased in
carbonite.
If you want to understand why
movies very specifically have two turning points, and if you
want to use the same technique to make your games more
cinematic, you can look up Three Act Structure and read up on it
yourself. The topic is a bit more involved than we need to get
into here. (Robert McKee’s book “Story” is one of the seminal
works on the subject and a good place to start.) All we need to
know to help make exciting campaigns is that turning points not
only help move the story along, but they provide your players
the opportunity to make choices and grow their characters in new
and interesting way.
Note there that choice is
key. While we used an inciting incident to get the ball rolling
and force the characters into an adventure, the choices they
make in the course of that adventure need to be allowed them
freely. If one of your player’s wants to run headlong into an
Imperial Garrison armed with only a fistful of limp noodles,
that’s his prerogative. It may not be smart, but it’s their
choice. Turning points, however, need to be about more than
just whether or not to storm a Garrison. They need to be
meaningful, character altering choices (not that having a couple
hundred blaster barrels in your face can’t be character
altering.) Turning points need to be things like, do the
characters choose to simply escape or help rescue the princess
in the process? Do the players finish smuggling run to a planet
full of slavers and simply take their reward, or do they help
lead an uprising of the slaves? Do the characters make a run on
an Imperial Outpost on behalf of the Rebels, or do they switch
sides and collect a reward from said Imperials? Will your
player go to fighter pilot school, or take the leap and go start
his Jedi training? These are the opportunities you can give
your players, tailored around their interests and abilities of
course, to help make the campaign engaging but also allow the
characters to grow and change.
I mentioned in the last
article that the McGuffin can be used not only as an inciting
incident, but can also be introduced as a turning point. That’s
what I’m going to do with Jak and Rajbacca. By the first
turning point, Jak will manage to find his old squadron and
briefly escape the Empire’s watchful eye. His old teammates
will inform him that what the Empire is really after is a Jedi
that’s been rolling with the squad, but he recently vanished.
The squad requests Jak’s help finding the Jedi before the Empire
does. The Jedi will be the McGuffin introduced if Jak decides
to help out. Maybe he won’t, and if he doesn’t that’s where
it’s important that I have a good outline.
Okay, I know, outlining is
boring, but it’s essential to a smooth campaign. We’re talking
about giving character’s choices, and sometimes it’s easy to
know what they’ll decide to do. But, what if your player does
something off the wall. What if we’ve set Jak up on a quest to
find a Jedi that could possibly give Jak some training (remember
that Jak is Force Sensitive, so this choice for training could
be another turning point) and Jak decides not to help find him.
Then what? Is the campaign over? Do we try to talk him into
it? Do we force him into it? That’s not a good choice,
especially since your characters don’t want to be forced into
doing things they don’t want to do.
The solution is a solid
outline. Think out all of your turning points and story
points. What happens at each leg of the journey? What are the
fall back positions if things don’t go as we, the GM’s, have
planned? What are alternative campaign routes? If in the first
scene, Jak rolls a lucky blaster roll and kills the Imperial
Commander that’s getting the story rolling? What if he helps
find the Jedi, but doesn’t want to do any training? What about
the explosives on his ship?
I’ve set up a lot of
questions that I don’t entirely have answers to. And I won’t
until I begin to flesh out the story further and outline all of
the points along the way. And hopefully with the tools I’ve
provided in the last few articles have provided starting points
for you to think about your campaigns in a new way. Hopefully
I’ve made the storytelling process easier. So get to work
outlining and remember that above all, the adventures should be
engaging and fun. I might write more if I can think of some
more helpful techniques for storytelling. Until then, have fun
playing.
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