5 scene sessions

 5 scene sessions

After playing around with a lot of different adventure structures, i have found that one of my favourites for structuring sessions is a modified form of the five room dungeon (with modifications heavily influenced by interface red)

The 5 room dungeon is a great simple setup for a session.

At its simplest it involves 5 "rooms" that can each be played out as a scene. Although these do not need to be literal - they could easily be scenes based on locations or events instead.

The important thing is that the session has a goal it is working towards and that this goal will be met at the climax of the session.

The traditional 5 room dungeon (as envisaged by John Fior) has the following rooms:

1) Entrance

2) Puzzle or roleplaying challenge

3) Trick or setback

4) Climax

5) Reward/ revelation/ plot twist

Room 2 and 3 can come in any order.

There has been plenty written about the 5 room dungeon elsewhere so I won't go into any more detail here other than to say it forms the basis of my most successful session structures to date.

I have however modified it a little, partly inspired by the story structures from Cyberpunk Red...

The modified 5 room dungeon (the 5 scene session

As always, start with some story seeds to create a premise in a similar way to how you would create a premise for a scene.

Hook: this isn't really a part of a traditional 5 room dungeon, and isn't necessary if you already have a strong hook in the premise. Often however, it helps to run a scene simply focused on getting the characters involved with the session.

1) the Hook/ inciting incident: This could be combat, a puzzle, a social event, or some other form of challenge. The important thing is that it draws you and the characters into the action. Often people spend a few scenes meandering and exploring before finding something that hooks them into a story, but I find that with limited time and attention I need to jump right in.

This scene needs to fulfil two goals: firstly it needs to introduce (or bring front and center if it has already been introduced) the problem the session will focus on solving, and second it needs to be interesting and unexpected enough to get the ball rolling.

The middle scenes (challenge, and revelation) can come in any order.

While wrapping up the hook I roll 1d6 to see which scene will come next: on a 1-3 it will be a challenge. On a 4+ it will be a revelation. That

2) challenge.

A challenge scene involves some kind of dangerous activity that puts the characters in jeapardy. It could be a fight, a chase, an ambush: anything that creates an immediately dangerous and pressing situation. Secondary challenges or complications may be present as well or may develop as the scene plays out.

3) revelation. Or skill based challenge.

A revelation scene could be finding or processinginformation, an unexpected meeting, a twist that shakes things up. There may be a challenge or complication of some kind, however the stakes will be lower than in a challenge scene.

The important thing about a revelation scene is that it must have at least the potential to impart new information to the characters - either encouraging them to forge ahead or demonstrating that they are on the wrong track.

4) climax

The climax generally takes the form of a challenge of some kind, but it might take the form of a revelation. It might even be a mere formality as everything falls together or falls apart.

Either way, it should provide a satisfying conclusion to the session.

5) Resolution or surprise.

The final scene in a session needs to wrap things up, either tying up loose ends or preparing them as seeds for future sessions.

Generally it will simply be a narrative scene, perhaps with an oracle being used to clarify any remaining questions.

Sometimes however it may include a surprise that might introduce a final challenge of some kind.

The variable scene session

The 5 scene session, much like the 5 room dungeon is a useful structure however it has one flaw that has always bothered me: it is very short, and it is always the same length making it too predictable.

This can be changed easily however.

Scenes 3 and 4 (the middle scenes) can simply be repeated multiple times before reaching the conclusion.

I generally prefer to play full iterations of both middle scenes.

After playing the second middle scene I roll 1d8: on a 1-6 I play another iteration of the middle scenes. On a 7+ I move straight to the climax.

After the second iteration I roll another d8. This time I move to the conclusion on a 5+.

After the third iteration I move t to the conclusion on a 3+

After the fourth iteration I automatically move to the conclusion.

This gives me a session running between 5 and 11 scenes.

Sometimes I want to have shorter session, in which case I roll a D6 instead of a d8, giving a maximum session length of 9 scenes.