Writing Every Day 25: Transitions

In both writing and roleplaying games, transitions are important. They allow us to flow from one paragraph or scene into the next while maintaining a train of thought, or the arc of the campaign. Participants don't have to mentally shift gears from one block of information to the next, because the transition creates a mental bridge between them.

In writing this process is all on the shoulders of transitions (not to be confused with transitional sentences, which I almost did). I'll let people smarter than me break the concept down for you.

In roleplaying games, transitions are scenes that link between various locations and encounters. Depending on the game and the Game Master's intent, a transition between scenes can be played out fully, or it can be summarized with a line or so. Think of all the sweeping montages of walking in the Lord of the Rings film franchise. Other than giving us a vista, they don't add much to the plot. The director Peter Jackson wisely decided to sum up to bring us to the next major beat of the story.

In your games, I advocate using this technique. Unless you have something interesting planned, feel free to summarize journeys to keep the story moving. This is particularly true when days or weeks of travel don't have any challenges to overcome, characters to interact with, or interesting locations along the way.

Readers of the blog already know what I'm going to say next. I advise using discretion when deciding to sum up the events between scenes. After all, the Lord of the Rings wouldn't be an interesting story if it glossed over the trials of the characters between Rivendell and Mount Doom. If you know the campaign will take the PCs on a long journey, be sure to seed some encounters or events along the way. Think of them like milestones on a long road; they mark the progress the PCs have made. This isn't just geographic. It also helps to mark the PCs' progress as characters.

Depending on how long this journey is, word may have spread of the PCs' exploits along the way. They can overhear stories of their actions throughout the campaign, colored by the perspective of the individually telling the tale (or by the Game Master introducing a bit of misinformation about the story). You can use scenes like this to remind the players of where they've just come from, what gains they've made in the campaign so far, before leading them into the next piece of the story.