Taking 20 Podcast - Ep 17 - Homebrew 101 - Basics of Plot & Story

Episode Date: April 19, 2020

Episode 17!  Another prime number!  Jeremy talks in depth about using common plot structures such as Freytag's pyramid, 3 Act Structure and the 7 most basic plots.  He may also briefly rant about why everyone loves the play Romeo and Juliet. Come see us on www.taking20podcast.com! Resources Story Design By Layer by Nick Palmer

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for tuning in to Taking20 Episode 17, Homebrew 101, The Basics of Plot and Story. I've gotten quite a bit of feedback from www.taking20podcast.com. I've also gotten some great emails sent to feedback at taking20podcast.com. Shoot me a line, give me some feedback. We'd love to hear from you. Today's totally not made-up sponsor, the Curl Up and Die Hair Salon. When you just can't deal anymore, curl up and die. Today's episode, we're going to focus on the concepts of plot and story.

If you're going to homebrew a campaign or an adventure, you need to understand some of the basics of plot and story. So what do I mean? Plot is the main events of a play, novel, movie, or in this case an RPG, that's devised and presented as an interrelated sequence. The story is bigger. It's the combination of setting, characters, and the plot, and how they interact with one another. A lot of those definitions, by the way, I pulled from a great article written by Nick Palmer called Story Design by Layer One. I'll put a link on taking20podcast.com. German leader Helmut von Moltke once said that no plan survives contact with the enemy.

Well, I'm going to make a corollary to that to say no plot survives contact with the players. What I'm going to present to you are plot structures that are a lot like the framing of a house with no decorations, paint, or even walls put up. So when your players inevitably Kool-Aid man, oh yeah, through your initial idea, the frame still stands and you can adapt a story around it. These structures should work regardless of what your campaign theme or style would be. Whether it's the redemption of a fallen leader in a far-future idyllic utopia, hunting a ruthless crime lord in a gritty 1920s prohibition adventure, or you're stopping the cult of the ebony moon along the Sword Coast.

So let's talk about some basic plot structures that have existed for, well, darn near since we've had plots. I want to start with what's called Freytag's Pyramid, expanded on Aristotle's three-part theory of tragedy. Gustav Freytag expanded it from a three-part to a five-part structure. The five parts being exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and denouement. Exposition, Rising Action, Climax, Falling Action, and Denouement. Exposition. This is the very beginning of your story, where you introduce the characters, you show relationships between them, you show their motivation, and the players learn the stakes of the campaign or adventure. The characters may meet and establish their interconnections, their motivations are revealed,

and you get an initial introduction, maybe, that something is afoot. There's some sort of complication or problem that's starting to arise. The next section of the story would be the rising action. It's a series of conflicts and crises that lead to the climax. The complication or problem is further established, and you raise the tension. The party works towards the goal, they have successes and setbacks, and maybe the party wins some and loses some against the big bad evil guy's forces. The third step along the way is the climax. This is the turning point. This is the single big event with the most intense action where the characters engage with the adversary, but not necessarily win. It's a major clash or battle. The party either loses or maybe they win the battle but at a huge cost.

Whenever I've used this plot structure, this is where I like to introduce the big bad evil guy in person. Show the party how powerful she is. Have her destroy something that the PCs love. The town, person that they know, an artifact, something that they thought was safe because they are there. After this single big event, no matter what that is, next step is the falling action. This is where things get darkest before the dawn. Problems start getting resolved and possible end games are identified. The falling action inevitably results from the decisions made at

the climax. Challenges may continue that the party barely overcomes. They limp into town, beaten and bruised, barely able to make it on. They're not sure how to beat the big bad evil guy at this point. But maybe the party improves. They level up. They gain new abilities. They gain new allies that augment the PC's abilities, but don't do it for them. Maybe the party gets an army to fight the big bad evil guy's army, distracting all those forces long enough for the party to get inside the lair and for the final confrontation. So the last stage is the denouement, which is a great French word. The denouement is the final part of a RPG narrative

where the strands of the plot are drawn together and matters are explained or resolved. So what does that mean in an adventure path? It's the final confrontation with the big bad evil guy, where there's a huge fight, the players win, the big bad evil guy lies dying. So it's victory and end of the adventure, or the party discovers that she was just a lieutenant for a much more powerful foe down the road. Maybe you raise the stakes and repeat the five steps. By following this basic five-step structure, you can generate nearly any plot almost on the fly. This isn't the only way to generate a plot, because I want to move on to my favorite way, which is called the three-act structure. So the three-act structure is another way to generate

a plot from scratch. And as you can imagine, the three-act structure consists of three acts. And they say this stuff is hard. Come on. So act one is the setup, where you get introduced to the characters in conflict, and there's some sort of inciting incident that comes up. Act 2 consists of the confrontation. It's the thick of the conflict. Maybe with other conflicts thrown in, odds appear completely impossible. All seems lost and decisions must be made. And then during Act 3, the fruit of those decisions comes ripe. It's the resolution. It's the final conflict and challenges, the climax and resolution.

To demonstrate the three-act structure, I want to go all the way back to Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet. In Act 1 of Romeo and Juliet, you meet the characters, the Montagues, the Capulets, and you find out how they participate in the story. use the Capulets, and you find out how they participate in the story. Act one, you discover the conflict between their family's hatred of each other and Romeo and Juliet's love for each other. In act two, Romeo is confronted with a duel, and his actions result in the death of his friend. Romeo kills Tybalt and is punished by being banished. So Act 3, Juliet fakes her death to keep Romeo around and try to bring out everyone's true feelings. Romeo discovers her body, doesn't know her death is fake,

and poisons himself rather than being without Juliet. When Juliet awakes, she realizes that Romeo has killed himself, and rather than being without Romeo, she stabs herself with the speech, Oh, happy dagger, my body is thy she himself, and rather than being without Romeo, she stabs herself with the speech, oh happy dagger, my body is thy sheath, and so on. She stabs herself, everyone's sad at the end, and the audience is sitting there saying, what the fuck just happened? People call this a romance, by the way. It's not. I honestly think that Romeo and Juliet's a story about the stupidity of letting emotions rule your life.

I mean, the Montague-Capulet rivalry and hatred of one another indirectly led to their children finding forbidden fruit in the other. Love conquers all, is the way this play gets described. Romeo and Juliet let a three-day love affair lead to six deaths, and I'm pretty damn sure Tybalt and Mercutio wish they'd never met. and I'm pretty damn sure Tybalt and Mercutio wish they'd never met. I've kind of wandered far afield from my original brief, and there's a lot of material about the three-act structure I want to get to, so I may push that off to an episode on its own. I'll get started on that and try to get that released next week.

Another structure you can use is the five milestones. I've never used this personally, but it's another one that a colleague of mine recommends. You have the setup, which is kind of the promise of the story. You have the inciting incident, which changes everything and lets the players know that things will never be the same after this. You have the first slap, which introduces a larger plot, kind of gets their attention. No, really, things will never be the same after this. After that, you have the second slap where things are getting worse, but maybe there's a glimmer of hope off in the distance. And then finally, you have the climax, which is the big conflict that's resolved by the party.

There are so many other structures we could talk about. The hero's 12-step journey. Dan Harmon of Community and Rick and Morty fame has an eight-step story circle, with the steps being you, need, go, search, find, take, return, and then change. If you go read about this and research this, episodes of shows made by Dan Harmon will never seem the same after this, so I do encourage you to go read it. So how do you build a plot? Pick your central idea. The big bad evil guy needs the five

infinity stones to kill half the population of the universe. But as you're picking that central idea, just make sure that villain's motivations make sense. What was Thanos' motivation for wanting to kill half the universe? Well, it varies actually. In the movie, it was overpopulation and potential shortage of resources. In the comics, it's because he was in love with death and wanted to get her attention. Okay, another movie. What was Kingpin's motivation for his actions in Spider-Man Into the Spider-Verse? He wanted to be reunited with his dead wife and son. Curing overpopulation and the shortage of resources, wanting to be reunited with a dead wife and son,

those are motivations we can all understand, and it makes the villain's actions believable. Look, if you're running a game for kids, your villains can be cartoon villains with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. I'll grant you, children's shows are more nuanced now than what we grew up on. Just make the villain a cartoon villain if you're running the game for little kids, and they'll have a blast. Interestingly, what I found,

if you run a game for teens, give the villain a believable reason for his or her behavior, but you can also add teen issues of fitting in with colleagues and friends, someone being unable to express their feelings well, and maybe even confusion of a new form as your body changes.

Those are elements of a game that you can pile onto villain motivations whenever you're gaming for teens. So pick your characters, your villains, your lieutenants, your bystanders, your NPCs. Start with the big ones and work down to the first big bad evil guy the PCs will deal with. Create a rough timeline of what would happen if the PCs never got involved. This timeline could be years long or days long, depending on the duration of your campaign. Hell, if the PCs go inside a computer like Tron, your entire timeline could be seconds long. Mine usually read on a table, day one this happens, day three that happens, day four the other thing happens, and you continually

adjust this timeline depending on the actions that the PCs take. Set the who, what, where, when, and why, and then off you go. Here's the thing. What if you don't have a plot structure to pick? What if you don't have exposure to a lot of different plot structures? I picked up a book called The Seven Basic Plots by Christopher Booker. It's a great read. It's quick. It's not the only place you can find a list of plots because there are a whole lot of books out there that vary the number of plots that are out there. Seven basic plots, 36 basic plots, 20 basic plots, whatever it is. But I'm going to use this as the basis for some of my material for the rest of the episode. The first of the seven basic plots is overcoming the monster, confronting an antagonistic force and defeating it. The monster could be a single thing, or it could be an entire army.

If you want examples for this, all the Super Mario Bros. games, the movie Jaws, the Terminator movies, Shaun of the Dead, Sherlock Holmes' interaction with Moriarty. For RPG examples, there's some sort of beast that's terrorizing a town that needs to be slain. There's an evil mayor that's oppressing citizens. There's a wizard who's raising an undead army. There's some monster out there that needs to be destroyed. It's the most common RPG plot. It's easy to understand, and I don't think it needs any other explanation. The second basic plot is called Rags to Riches. Someone with with humble beginnings and they rise to fame and fortune, possibly losing it all and gaining it back. Maybe they'll even discover that they were happier before they were rich.

Examples of this include Aladdin, Cinderella, Star Wars A New Hope, Karate Kid, older movies like Trading Places and Brewster's Millions. For RPG examples, you have to think of something like maybe the party has a windfall and has it stolen by seedy business owners and they have to give it back. Or the party has to work their way up in a crime syndicate to go from poor street thugs to rich crime bosses. The third basic plot I want to talk about is the quest. Set out to acquire a certain object or reach a location of some sort. We all understand this one as well. The Odyssey, Lord of the Rings, Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Lightning Thief, the entire Avengers storyline with Thanos. RPG examples get the thing in the place to save the people. Find the sword in the lost tomb to slay the beast and save the town.

Rescue the horn that was lost to the ocean waves to bring the fish back and help a starving coastal village. The fourth type of basic plot I want to talk about is the voyage in return, where you set out on a journey to a strange land and the hero grows as part of the process. Alice in Wonderland, Inception, The Lion King, The Hobbit, Little Miss Sunshine, Back to the Future. There's all sorts of movies out there that demonstrate voyage and return. For RPG examples, maybe the party has to go to the Feywild or First World to learn of a character's heritage. Maybe you venture into hell to save one of the PC's lost loves just to learn that she's really just a thought and sleeping with the devil. The fifth major plot I want to talk about is comedy.

Light, humorous complications that have funny and happy resolutions. Taming of the Shrew, Much Ado About Nothing, the movie Dodgeball, Burn After Reading, Borderlands 2 DLC, Sir Hamilock's Big Game Hunt. There are countless examples of comedy in all of the different media that you can consume. RPG examples, maybe the party is mistaken for someone else, maybe the villains have some sort of funny motivation, any sort of RPG plot that subverts your expectations. The sixth basic plot I want to talk about is the tragedy, where the protagonist has a tragic flaw or makes a huge mistake that winds up being their undoing.

Macbeth, The picture of Dorian Gray, Frankenstein, the movie In Bruges, spoiler alert. RPG examples are tough because it's hard to guarantee a tragedy because the dice can dramatically affect outcome. Maybe you have a situation where the sins from a character's past makes him unable to enter the final chamber. Maybe a PC has to sacrifice another PC or a character from their backstory in order to defeat the big bad evil guy. The seventh and final basic plot I want to talk about is Rebirth. It's an event which requires a character to change their ways and become better. A Christmas Carol is a prime example of this. The movie Megamind, Beauty and the Beast.

For RPG, it's hard to do this in a collaborative nature, but one thing you can do is you can use negative aspects of a character from their backstory to show that character's growth and rebirth throughout the campaign. Now, the seven basic plots are a gross oversimplification, because honestly, most stories are a mix. You can argue the movie Megamind, for example, is the quest, rebirth, and overcoming the monster all mashed up. So how do you learn the basics of plot?

Watch movies, read books, watch short stories. Hell, pick some sort of anthology on a streaming service that has numerous short stories built in easily consumable bites, watch that with an eye to the plot. See if you can figure out where the climax is in the big turn where things change. That moment where Miles Morales is sitting in his room and he finally learns to control his powers. Use a critical eye on what you're taking in. Look for those big transition points that change the narrative. As stated in a previous episode, if you like that narrative plot, steal it and make it yours. Write your campaign around that. Write your adventure around that type of structure. No plot survives contact with the players, but by knowing basic structures,

you can adapt the PC's choices into a compelling story. Thank you so much for listening to episode 17, Homebrew 101, The Basics of Plot and Story. Please give us a rating on iTunes or Google Play. I've abandoned Stitcher at this point, so iTunes and Google Play is the way to find us. You can also find us on Podbean and www.taking20podcast.com. Thank you again to our totally not made up sponsor, the Curl Up and Dye Hair Salon. They'll give you a new do to screw a few through.

My name is Jeremy Shelley, and I hope that your next game is your best game.