Transcripts available at diceexploder.com

When you’re playing roleplay-heavy D&D, what does a scene look like? Since the game doesn’t give you much in the way of tools for doing so, are you framing scenes intentionally or just kind of letting them happen? And if the latter, is that serving you well?

You very well might be, but I’ve become obsessed lately with how we frame scenes in roleplaying games, and today I want to talk about a mechanic that does so very firmly: spotlight scenes, a procedure in which  each player in the game gets a turn to say what they want the next scene to be.

To do that, I’m joined by Mo Turkington, designer of many great structured freeform larps including the well-lauded Rosenstrasse and her latest release Lumberjills. We get into the history of spotlight scenes, the pros and cons of including rules for framing and ending scenes in your game, and how even a mechanic like this one that feels so structural and procedural, when used int he right context, can have a beautiful, thematically resonant message in it about agency and self-actualization.

Ad Links

Song of the Scryptwyrm by Almost Bedtime Theater

Further Reading

Lumberjills by Moyra Turkington

I Say A Little Prayer by Tor Kjetil Edland

Just a Little Lovin’ by Tor Kjetil Edland and Hanne Grasmo

Rosenstrasse by Moyra Turkington and Jessica Hammer

Montsegur 1244 by Frederik J. Jensen

Red Carnations on a Black Grave by Catherine Ramen and Juan Ochoa

Socials

Moyra’s games on itch

Sam on Bluesky and itch

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