H is for Hot and Hard…
From the Dictionary of Fearless Gaming.
Scene framing is an almost universal tool a GM has across game systems. It is when the GM narrates a situation for players to engage with. Think of it as camera control of a movie and cutting to scenes. I find it’s a great tool for pacing and for getting to the action as well as going deep, and getting questions answered.
Hard Framing
My players, Kenau and Carrie-Ann, have decided to go save their NPC leader who got captured on a mission. They do a shopping montage in their online stockroom. Then I Hard Frame to the lobby of the building Morpheus, their cell’s leader is held. I describe the heavy rain, the mundane routine of the guards, and ending with ‘what do you do…’
We cut past all the travel talk and other stuff that didn’t matter. My players armed up, and I put them at the front door. That’s a hard frame based on their decision to go save Morpheus and implied was via the front door.
Coming in HOT
“So you’re the princess with these secret plans. Your ship has been captured by the Emperor’s chief thug and retinue, they are boarding right now. What do you do?”
I LOVE HOT framing situations. This is still a hard frame, you are setting the situation. It is HOT because the action train has already left the station, everybody is on board and the bridge is out. Many action movies start with a hot frame, especially Mission Impossible films. It is usually the team in the middle of a mission and we get to see them strut their stuff. I do this with new games, or con games so folks get to try out their cool character bits. For new arcs, or developments I may use a hot frame. My favorite is a hot frame off a failed roll. Say my bounty-hunting characters are shaking down folks for information on Three-face Keeg’s whereabouts and they fail that roll. I give them the info anyway then cut to them rolling into Keeg’s place as he’s hopping out the back…and armed ruffians greet the player characters at the front.
I also go the other way, ‘cold’ hard framing. The GM is still cutting to a new situation. One that’s more about exploration, discovery, mundane, slower. The bounty-hunting players arrive at Keeg’s place. He’s not there but his wife and brother are. For me, cold frames reveal details about the players, their characters, and sometimes the setting we’re in. This information feeds right back into the game as I get to understand where the interests are, and where the drama is at. For example, what do the players do now? What if the wife and brother have no idea Keeg is a wanted criminal, what do the players do with that? What if the wife and brother know, but refuse to cooperate? For me, this whole scene tells me more about the characters than what the players might get from it.
High-level Framing
I find more often than not characters will split up. When I can I’ll hard frame two situations in parallel. Usually a hot and a cold, or two hot frames. I then cut between the two at cliff-hanger spots. I am heavy-handed about hard framing as a pacing tool. I will jump forward to the next ‘scene’ to avoid stalling out and players pre-gaming an action.
If this is new to you, start with jumping ahead in time. Look at what just happened at your table, if the players have decided on a course of action jump ahead to it. Use any success or failures that happened to color in this new situation. Don’t worry about the hot/cold dial yet, just incorporate what has already been established into the new situation, talk about the environment, whos’ present — and who is not, sometimes that’s important too! The work will be on making sure this new situation has some movement and for sure a reason for the players to act.
