Last time in my 13th Age campaign summary, I mentioned that I used a montage mechanic for how the group found one of the bad guys. As promised, let’s talk about the montage and what it can do for you.
Editors note: We like to rate our toolkit suggestions for the appropriate campaigns, so on a scale from grognard to hippy-game, the Montage is on the far end of the hippy side of the spectrum.
Editor's note the second: the montage concept is not something I came up with. As much as I'd like to say so, it comes from the 13th Age game.
So what’s a montage? Well, I’m sure you all know the basic story.
In a role-playing game, the montage is used for a slightly different purpose: it gets us from one point in the story that we care about to the next one in a fun way, while letting the characters in the game show off what they’re good at. Let me give you a couple examples of what I’m talking about.
Suppose your group is exploring a dungeon with a definite goal in mind. Maybe it’s rescue the prisoner, or find the McGuffin, but it really can be anything. The key is: you have one or more planned events, which we’ll call encounters, and you've decided that you don’t want to draw out (in more ways than one) the space between those encounters. What to do?
Similarly, in the game I just ran, the group was looking for a man who was involved in some very nasty stuff: buying and selling bodies. The group knew he could be found on the docks, but had no other obvious leads to follow. In this case, the next real scene was talking with their target (that's a nice way of saying "beating them until they talked"), but how do we get there?
In both cases there are several ways to get to the next scene.
The old-school way to handle both of them is to get out a map, narrate what the group sees and have them do everything it takes to get from point “a” to point “b.” That’s a perfectly acceptable way to do things. Heck, scratch that, it’s my blog, so I’ll be honest with you. It’s not the traditional Sith way, but let’s give it a try. To be honest, it’s not. It's a perfect way to burn a couple hours accomplishing nothing of interest.
In the dungeon example, you have a few different encounters that (let’s hope) are interesting, interspersed with a lot of empty rooms. Of course, if you’re playing old-school, your group doesn't know they're empty, and will take quite a bit of time navigating the non-threatening, non-interesting rooms to get to where everyone wants to be: the good stuff.
Similarly, the second example appears to have a lot more possibility for some fun, but it really doesn't: you’re talking with people, but because time is of the essence, you’re basically looking for an answer rather than some potentially interesting stuff from later on. Once again, you’re being kept from progressing to the interesting stuff. What’s more, in the second case, if you don’t talk to the right people, or make the right checks, you might never find what you’re looking for. Wouldn't that be fun?
In both cases, you’re doing something that, while realistic, isn't that interesting. If it were a book or a movie, both cases would likely be handled by either a montage, or a simple cut to the next scene.
Why not do that in our role-playing games?
That’s the point of the montage.
But Wait, There’s More!
I know you’re thinking “great idea, let’s do it,” but I have yet another reason for suggesting you use montages, and that relates to an earlier article I wrote on The Truth of the World. Using a montage is a great way to establish who your characters really are, and for them to behave in the way that your players want them to, without the prospect of falling flat on their face. It also gives you plenty of opportunity to expand the Truth of your world and give your campaign more depth.So How Does it Work?
When you’re planning a montage, the only decision you have to make is how long to make it. Montages have two lengths: short and long. For your first montage, try a short one. As your group gets more experience with it, go long!To get started, clarify with your players what it is that they’re trying to accomplish, and then ask them to tell about a problem that they encountered along the way. You can select a particular player to start, or ask for volunteers.
The first player will tell you about the problem. Let them know that the problem can be anything at all, subject to the limitations for the kind of campaign you’re running, and with the possibility of your veto if things get out of hand. “No zombie apocalypses” is a good rule to enforce, for instance.
This can be a tough place to start with, especially if your players are coming from a very traditional role-playing background where the GM tells the players everything that they’re seeing and experiencing and then they react to it. This sort of thing is very hippy-gamish, and might not always sit well with the group.
The key is that the group tells you about the challenge, and that challenge is a real thing: it can be part of The Truth of the World, sotospeak. It’s a real thing that actually happened, and has real consequences in the game. The consequences component is where you may have to exercise some GM fiat and put your foot down if your group gets too out of sync with the world you’re presenting.
At the same time, this part of the game is a perfect prelude to making some changes to the game and sending it in directions you might never have planned.
When you and the group have come to a consensus, narrate what the problem was for them. And that’s the first part of the process.
In the dungeon example, one of the players suggested that there was a huge chasm that kept the group from going any further. It stretched deep into the earth, and had an acrid smell of something … not right coming from it.
In the information gathering example, the group had decided to use one of their contacts to get the information from her investigations while they were covertly following her. They decided that the contact was picked up by the police for snooping into the wrong sort of things.
Now that you've had your group create the problem, it’s time to fix it: pick another player (either have the first one select them, accept volunteers or just pick someone) and say “so that happened. It turns out that your character was key to resolving that problem. Tell me how they did it.” That's the resolution.
And that is the second part. Have a player tell you what they did to resolve it. The resolution doesn't involve any die rolls, require them to use any limited resources or powers, it just let’s them show how their character would solve a crisis. And it works. That character gets to be awesome.
Once you've agreed on the resolution, narrate what happens, perhaps embellishing on it a bit to make it consistent with your game world, and voila.
Again, this second part can be very intimidating for more traditional or conservative players. In most role-playing games along the grognard side of the scale, you don’t get to narrate what actually happens: you make a check to resolve things that are uncertain, and the GM tells you the results. This flies in the face of that kind of play. And that’s a good thing!
When a player is talking about how they solved the problem, they’re telling you ways that their character is being awesome, so let this happen, and pay attention! Most players have an image of what their character is really good at in their head, and all too often this doesn't reflect well in play. The master thief may constantly botch their open locks check, or the smooth talker might not be able to make the right turn of phrase (or roll a decent skill check, if you prefer). The montage system lets them do the things they actually imagine their character doing in just the right way.
Again, as a GM you’re going to interpret what happens here, and what the player is able to do has to work in the context of the game you’re running. This isn't the place to make changes to the game itself or give out lasting rewards (unless you decide in the context of the game that it should be, in which case, go for it) it’s spotlight time for a character to show what they can do.
In our dungeon example, the solution was handed off to the team’s ranger, who explained how he fired a rope arrow into the roof of the cavern, swung across, and then made a rope bridge for the rest of the group. The bard, the least agile member of the group, almost slipped and fell to his death, only to be caught at the last moment. We did all of that without a single die roll.
In the second example, the team’s spell caster created an illusion of a terribly foul odor, causing the guards to run from the building in utter horror. The group picked up their agent, who continued their investigation.
Hold on Right There
There are a number of objections you might have to the montage mechanic you grognard you, so let’s talk about them.This Isn't Real
Okay, this is the big one. You’re doing all of this automagically rather than earning it. That’s not right.Frankly, my answer to this is: you are correct. It’s not real. And?
Ahem. To not be so flippant, you are correct. What the montage system does is give you two types of play: competitive and narrative. The different types of play serve separate purposes: advancing the story (the “narrative”) and serving as a challenge (the “game”). In a role-playing game, these two components serve different purposes, but are just as important.
The montage component adds some balance to the more extensive game elements. Now it may be atypical for a Sith to talk about balance, but it does make an excellent game.
Where’s the Challenge?
As you've seen, the montage lets characters do some incredible things without rolling a single die, so the question of where’s the challenge is bound to come up.My answer is simple: the challenge is different, but it still exists. The montage challenge is making a better and more interesting game for everyone, so that the group simply has a better time of it. It’s a challenge that is usually on the shoulders of the GM alone, but in this case we've expanded the game’s responsibilities so that everyone is involved. As an aside, this is a great way to get some of your more shy and introverted players involved with the game.
Short and Long Montages
I said earlier that there were two kinds of montages: short and long, so let’s detail them. A short montage continues until everyone in the group has either created a problem or offered a solution. A long montage has everyone do both.When you’re doing a montage, once a player has been in control of a problem or a solution, they can’t take the lead again, unless it’s a long one, where they get to create both a problem and a solution.
In the Middle
One of the most interesting things you can do with a montage is stop in the middle of it and insert an actual real encounter. You can spring this on your group who might just be expecting to go all the way to the next big thing. Interspersing encounters in a montage can serve to keep the group more focused, and make the montage more “real.”In the example of the dungeon (a long montage) the group had an encounter with a trapped chest that gave them the chance to find some treasure in the middle of it, before going onto the next big encounter. It broke up the montage and made everything seem more grounded.
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