Scene-Framing and Dramatic Technique

Shadows in the Fog works best with a strongly-structured dramatic setup. There is so much player control, and so few other guidelines and genre constraints, that without strong framing techniques there is a tendency for the game to become diffuse and incoherent. This chapter discusses one way to hold everything together.

A common trope in relatively recent games has it that every rule should be thrown away when the play-group finds it overly limiting. I don’t particularly feel that way; it seems to me that if the rule is a good one, it should support the overall structure of the game and keep the whole thing going. These suggestions, however, are somewhat more optional than other things in Shadows in the Fog. They are based on what seemed to work for us; if you feel strongly that there is a better way to accomplish your goals for Shadows in the Fog, you should do that. But you might want to give this a try.

{Naming a Scene <--> Plots}

-- ChrisLehrich^? - 24 Dec 2004