Exploring the Premise
There's an idea that comes up in movies called exploring the premise. Basically, once a movie has established what its premise is, a certain amount of time is spent showcasing what that means. If the premise of my movie is "Superintelligent hamsters wage a secret war against sinister snakes" then you can expect a certain amount of the movie being spent letting me see these hamsters running around doing superintelligent (and probably cute or humorous) things. We might see their great hidden tube city or watch their wacky antics, but whatever form it takes, this part of the movie is all about delivering on the promise of the premise and showing me some hamster action.
During this time the plot tends not to advance, conflicts are purely for show and characters are displayed but not developed. How long this stretch lasts varies from movie to movie, but it is often one of the most fun parts of the film as it tends to create moments of humor and spectacle of the sort that tend to end up in the trailer. It's also very important to the story because by taking us along on this ride, it helps us buy into the premise so we're more thoroughly invested when the time comes for the story to actually progress.
A few examples:
Every medium has their own version of this, though few do it as discretely as movies do. For books it sort of expands or contracts based on the author. Science fiction, especially classic science fiction, has many stories where the plot and characters are little more than the minimal window dressing necessary for the author to explore a particular premise. TV and comics thread it into their serial nature, with the exploration of premise usually reserved for origin stories, one-offs and non-arc episodes. This can be really hit or miss, though it often depends on how strong the premise is or, barring that, how strongly the fans buy into the premise.
RPG's are in a weird position because they're a hybrid between engaged and passive media (to say nothing of standalone vs. serial), but a game can definitely benefit from at least some time spent exploring the premise. Much as in a movie, this is time spend building up an investment so that the later elements of story have a lot more power. If your characters are a gang of thieves then you would be well served to have them pull off a heist that showcases their abilities and establish who they are before you move onto issues that call those abilities and identities into question.
This exploration is also something of a two-way street, since opportunity for the players to explore setting and roles is also an opportunity for players to externalize elements of the character they've been carrying around internally. This one-two punch can be a great source of fun.
All this hinges on the potentially unpopular assertion that not every scene needs to have a conflict. Yes, that flies in the face of conventional wisdom and stacks of books on writing and drama, but there it is. Conflict is essential to a good story, yes, but it is far from the only ingredient in the soup - a story with nothing but conflict is going to fall as flat as one with none at all.
The trick is that you cannot explore premise all the time any more than you can drive to conflict all the time. I mean, you can, and there are successful games that do both, but you can usually tell that success comes more from the players than the structure of the game in those cases. Striking a balance between these two is definitely more art than science, and every table should find its own balance. It's entirely reasonable to have a single conflict that frames a lot of exploration (such as being blackmailed [conflict] into raiding a dungeon [exploration]) but it's equally reasonable to have the bulk of the game driven by conflict with only one or two scenes that explore premise in order to recharge batteries for the subsequent conflicts.
A lot hinges on what your players do when they explore the premise - if they're engaged by it (perhaps because they are tactically engaged in fights or perhaps because they use the exploration to unearth issues that fuel future play) then it's hard to go wrong. Ride it out, and when interest and engagement start to flag then you can start throwing conflicts into the mix.
The reverse is a little more nuanced. Certainly, if your players are getting fatigued by the conflicts, you can step back and explore premise for a while, but if you're an engaging GM or have excited players, they may not grow fatigued until the game is done. That might seem to be an argument for never "wasting time" with exploration of premise, but that overlooks the benefit unique to gaming: because the players are changing the premise, you need to give them opportunities to see the impact of their actions. At its simplest this means letting players taste the fruits of their victories, but more broadly, this is a function of the kind of conflicts you're throwing at players. If they're trivial conflicts that change nothing, your players will probably get tired quick, so that's self-correcting, but if they're meaningful conflicts that produce meaningful change, players need a chance to stop and appreciate that change. They need a chance to explore what those changes mean and re-establish a baseline so that when they get back into conflict it remains meaningful to them.
That said, it's not always easy to do because it's easy for a GM to lose track of the premise. If you simply treat an opportunity to explore the premise as an opportunity to explore everything then you will very quickly end up in the weeds. Always keep in mind what promise you are delivering on, and if that's not where things are going, then you've got every reason to bust out a conflict and get back on the roller coaster (that is, unless your players actions reveal to you a premise you hadn't considered).
I think exploration of premise has gotten a bit of a bad rap in some gaming circles. It's not as sexy (or simple) as conflict, and it's easy to dismiss as dungeon crawling or scenery chewing, but there's a reason that it still has a large role in the way that people actually play RPGs, since it speaks most directly to what is unique about the hobby. So I want to flag it as a useful tool, if one that is perhaps a bit trickier to use than it may first appear.
During this time the plot tends not to advance, conflicts are purely for show and characters are displayed but not developed. How long this stretch lasts varies from movie to movie, but it is often one of the most fun parts of the film as it tends to create moments of humor and spectacle of the sort that tend to end up in the trailer. It's also very important to the story because by taking us along on this ride, it helps us buy into the premise so we're more thoroughly invested when the time comes for the story to actually progress.
A few examples:
- In Groundhog Day, once we've established that Bill Murray is reliving the same day over and over again, we get to spend time watching him do the things we would do; taking advantage of the situation, basking in consequence-less existence and having fun with it.
- In Ghostbusters, once the guys have started their company, we get to see them bust slimer in the hotel. This doesn't advance the plot in any meaningful way, but it gives us a chance to see them do the things we came to the movie to see them do: bust ghosts!
- In Spiderman, after Peter discovers his powers, we get to spend time with him testing them out and goofing around with them. This approach is common in a lot of superhero stories.
Every medium has their own version of this, though few do it as discretely as movies do. For books it sort of expands or contracts based on the author. Science fiction, especially classic science fiction, has many stories where the plot and characters are little more than the minimal window dressing necessary for the author to explore a particular premise. TV and comics thread it into their serial nature, with the exploration of premise usually reserved for origin stories, one-offs and non-arc episodes. This can be really hit or miss, though it often depends on how strong the premise is or, barring that, how strongly the fans buy into the premise.
RPG's are in a weird position because they're a hybrid between engaged and passive media (to say nothing of standalone vs. serial), but a game can definitely benefit from at least some time spent exploring the premise. Much as in a movie, this is time spend building up an investment so that the later elements of story have a lot more power. If your characters are a gang of thieves then you would be well served to have them pull off a heist that showcases their abilities and establish who they are before you move onto issues that call those abilities and identities into question.
This exploration is also something of a two-way street, since opportunity for the players to explore setting and roles is also an opportunity for players to externalize elements of the character they've been carrying around internally. This one-two punch can be a great source of fun.
All this hinges on the potentially unpopular assertion that not every scene needs to have a conflict. Yes, that flies in the face of conventional wisdom and stacks of books on writing and drama, but there it is. Conflict is essential to a good story, yes, but it is far from the only ingredient in the soup - a story with nothing but conflict is going to fall as flat as one with none at all.
The trick is that you cannot explore premise all the time any more than you can drive to conflict all the time. I mean, you can, and there are successful games that do both, but you can usually tell that success comes more from the players than the structure of the game in those cases. Striking a balance between these two is definitely more art than science, and every table should find its own balance. It's entirely reasonable to have a single conflict that frames a lot of exploration (such as being blackmailed [conflict] into raiding a dungeon [exploration]) but it's equally reasonable to have the bulk of the game driven by conflict with only one or two scenes that explore premise in order to recharge batteries for the subsequent conflicts.
A lot hinges on what your players do when they explore the premise - if they're engaged by it (perhaps because they are tactically engaged in fights or perhaps because they use the exploration to unearth issues that fuel future play) then it's hard to go wrong. Ride it out, and when interest and engagement start to flag then you can start throwing conflicts into the mix.
The reverse is a little more nuanced. Certainly, if your players are getting fatigued by the conflicts, you can step back and explore premise for a while, but if you're an engaging GM or have excited players, they may not grow fatigued until the game is done. That might seem to be an argument for never "wasting time" with exploration of premise, but that overlooks the benefit unique to gaming: because the players are changing the premise, you need to give them opportunities to see the impact of their actions. At its simplest this means letting players taste the fruits of their victories, but more broadly, this is a function of the kind of conflicts you're throwing at players. If they're trivial conflicts that change nothing, your players will probably get tired quick, so that's self-correcting, but if they're meaningful conflicts that produce meaningful change, players need a chance to stop and appreciate that change. They need a chance to explore what those changes mean and re-establish a baseline so that when they get back into conflict it remains meaningful to them.
That said, it's not always easy to do because it's easy for a GM to lose track of the premise. If you simply treat an opportunity to explore the premise as an opportunity to explore everything then you will very quickly end up in the weeds. Always keep in mind what promise you are delivering on, and if that's not where things are going, then you've got every reason to bust out a conflict and get back on the roller coaster (that is, unless your players actions reveal to you a premise you hadn't considered).
I think exploration of premise has gotten a bit of a bad rap in some gaming circles. It's not as sexy (or simple) as conflict, and it's easy to dismiss as dungeon crawling or scenery chewing, but there's a reason that it still has a large role in the way that people actually play RPGs, since it speaks most directly to what is unique about the hobby. So I want to flag it as a useful tool, if one that is perhaps a bit trickier to use than it may first appear.