NormalVision (part 1)
What's the difference between role-playing games and other mediums? The audience is the same as the actors. The players fill both roles. But for the players to face interesting challenges they are usually kept in the dark about more things than a passive audience needs to be. An audience at a movie can know who the murderer is from the start and sit in suspense as the protagonist unwittingly turns their back on the killer. If the players knew that from the start they wouldn't have much of a challenge solving the mystery.
In a movie or story other information is revealed to the audience to give the story perspective, even if the protagonists don't see it. The audience sees the night watchman get pounced on from the shadows, revealing that all is not well in this small town. The audience sees the comet impact outside town, heralding the arrival of the alien zombie virus. But players have a first-person perspective through the eyes of their characters so by definition they only see things that their characters see. They are never shown background action that would put the story in perspective or foreshadow events.
One alternative is to manipulate the scene unnaturally so the PCs are participants or observers in these situations, which defies internal logic, or to have the events reported by a third party NPC, which… would be… boring.
A better solution is NormalVision: players temporary take on the roles of characters who would normally be inconsequential NPCs. By playing these mundane characters, the players get to participate in events that their main characters would never see first-hand.
NormalVision characters are not heroes or protagonists. They are extras, red-shirts, background characters in the great scheme of things. They are the doomed nightwatchmen, the curious teens at look-out point, the native graverobbers who disturb a tomb that should not be disturbed. In other words, they are normal people (except perhaps for the circumstances they find themselves in), and the players see the world through their eyes, at least for a little while.
NormalVision is a departure from ordinary play because the players are not expected to be the ones setting the direction of the scene. They should not be trying to change the course of the action. This might be hard for some players (or GMs) to get.
By definition, NormalVision characters may be doomed from the start. If the players are taking on the role of a freighter's crew far out to sea, and the point of the scene is to reveal that some mysterious menance is destroying ships, the NormalVision PCs are not likely to survive when their vessel is attacked. They won't even be able to put up a fight. The scene can pretty much fade to black as soon as the unseen terror strikes from beneath the waves, except for a cut screen of the sinking ship.
An advantage of NormalVision is specifically that it delivers information to the players not the characters. The players may know that something strange is afoot, but since they know their characters do not they can comfortably continue to not expect the unexpected. It clarifies the boundaries of metagaming, freeing up the players to manuever their characters in a way that fits the theme of the game but still enjoy their ignorance.
As a role-playing exercise NormalVision can be challenging and fun. It lets the players experiment with a new role for a short time. They get to improv and try new ideas with no long term repercussions. The change of pace can be quite refreshing, shaking players out of their regular roles.
Coming Soon, NormalVision (part 2), When Should I Use It?
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@ Michael: Keep in mind that in most games players are learning about Things That Already Happened. With NormalVision they are getting to play and experience those things instead of listening to exposition.
Every time we used it, the players had a great time. Since they’re not using a regular character it’s basically zero risk. It’s just a chance to role-play and do something different. The players are also in on the joke of dramatic irony: when the players were driving a police transport van on what should have been a completely boring milk run, one officer immediately started talking about how he was only two weeks from retirement, the other took out the picture of his bride-to-be, etc. The players knew something terrible was going to happen to them, because that’s exactly what would happen in the movies. They loved it.
I keep thinking that it would be very awkward and pre-heavy to spring it on as written. But maybe it is is somehow a benefit to the players, like ‘Vision’ or an additonal clue bought with a Hero Point. Some structure that makes it not so ‘forced’ onto the players. Maybe they could even have ‘normal’ NPCs that they regularly play that just happen to be accidental witnesses to important goings on – the Lois Lanes, or the Servant of the King. I like the idea though.
Kind of funny, I used the opposite of normalvision. I had my players take the roles of ancient heroes who were much more powerful and deadly than they were in order to explain what the battle against the dark god was really like. That being said, a very interesting idea for the future, and much less prep ._.
Old post, but here you go…
I usually use narrative cut scenes as well, and they do just fine. On the other hand, I actually started using a NormalVision style of scene/encounter in some games a few years ago and they can be quite effective as well, and under the right circumstances can be great fun.
My first attempt at this sort of play was a full-on dungeon crawl for one night to set the scene for the PCs. I drew up five NPCs, handed them to the players, and threw them into a dungeon that would prove fatal. It was fun.
The players could do all the wacky and insane things they would love to do with their main characters, but wouldn’t dare due to the story repercussions. And, they didn’t have to worry about dying either, as they knew it was merely a matter of time. In all honesty, I think they started playing a game to see who could die in the most horrid and awesomely imaginable way possible.
But besides simply being a fun alternative evening, it also set the stage to the PC’s next guild assignment – find this group of adventurers that has gone missing and complete their assignment. When the PCs turned up at the same dungeon, the players already knew the very real sort of danger their characters were in. And when they found the remains (and two “surviving” members) of the other party, they cared more about the characters than they would have a stock NPC.
So, from my example I can think of a few reasons why it is superior to a simple narrative:
– It allows for a break in an intense storyline. The players can step back from their characters for a night (or a few minutes) and just have fun.
– It lets the players take a look at the other side of the table. One player chose the same character-type as their main PC, but most switched it up to try a different class and role.
– It creates emotional ties to an event and possibly NPCs. This I think ended up being one of the most valuable aspects of my first attempt. They even rescued one of the NPCs and he became involved in a lot of their later game.
– It alerted them to the very real danger their characters were in. Now they knew why they made listen checks and didn’t just try to jump over every pit. This particular dungeon also worked on a sort of timer, and so they were introduced to this concept and mechanic prior to getting their own characters caught in it (which is likely too late).
Anyway, just some thoughts from a passerby four years after the initial post…
As a DM I just use narrative cut scenes for this (like computer games or TV series have). Short, dramatic, and moderately well delivered players dig them.
[…] reading the NormalVision (which discusses handing players unimportant NPC’s in a situation that is out of their […]
Okay, I may be slow, but what’s the real benefit of this? And is the benefit really worth to get players out their main characters?
A More Perfect Union, the new M&M adventure by Steve Kenson, opens with a NormalVision scene. Nicely done.
Normalvision seems very appopriate to High Story or dramatic genres, like Superheroes and maybe something like Gothic genres.
But it seems less appropriate to Dungeoneering or Starfaring games.
I guess you could still do it, if those settings were heavy on the story element.
I suppose you could have normal vision at the creation of the dungeon where the evil queen sacrifices 100 of her loyal servants (or something) to add justification later for the good PCs to go in. Any other applicaitons?
“Only three weeks until retirement, what could go wrong?”
One aspect of normalvision that I’m always quite fond of is that the players are given free reign to play broad archetypes and even cliches without it having a negative impact on the story. While the main heroes need to be well developed and balanced characters, the Normalvision “extras” are generally defined by one trait (Older, wiser cop. Captain of the ship. . .. uhh . . the Ted.) It’s a nice chance for the players to let their hair down and riff without really worrying about the consequences since what the normalvision characters do tends not to have too much impact on what actually happens.
Plus sitting around having a seance and treating Seth like my wife is fun.
Jen said:
“Holy crap, I had no idea I had such long ideas about this.”
Yep, that’s what I keep thinking as I draft each sprawling post…
We haven’t gotten to this point in ZR yet, but – without overpraising here – I think it’s kind of a stroke of genius, this NormalVision thing. NormalVision is a misnomer, though; in daily life, part of the tension and stress is that we have no goddamn idea why most things happen, or indeed whether there is a reason beyond immediate cause-and-effect. In fact, that very stress is a large part of why I am an impassioned consumer of plot: a voracious reader, impatient with most art film and largely indifferent to visual art. Gaming is very frustrating to me at this level, because I want to know where the fuck THAT guy came from and why he’s doing what he’s doing. IRL, NormalVision is ignorance of any overarching plot; it’s only Normal to expect that authorial/omniscient perspective in the schema of fiction.
NormalVision solves the dilemma by making the characters live the same frustrating lives the rest of humanity (elfity, monsterity, whateverity) has to tolerate, which is kind of the only way to play True to Life, but allowing the players the opportunity to know what’s going on. It’s like acting – you don’t expect the actor to play the part without reading the stage directions, and without knowing the whole script, but you do expect the character to remain ignorant of things to come and of anything to which he isn’t directly exposed (or which is not reported to him). With gaming, the actor has to work improv, but the work is more sustained than a traditional improv piece, and there’s much more complex plot involved than in improv I’ve been exposed to. NormalVision strikes me as a nice solution.
Holy crap, I had no idea I had such long ideas about this.
I should also add to my above comments that from a player perspective more than just a fun roleplaying experience, foreshadowing or context-providing, Normalvision (especially at the beginning) can serve to settle the players into the game and/or genre without having to dive right in with your main character.
(and finally…)
<The players may know that something strange is afoot, but since they know their characters do not they can comfortably continue to not expect the unexpected.>
This may be the stumbling block for many players if roleplaying to them is keeping it “as real” as possible — that inherently they want to keep what they know and don’t know as close to what their character knows and doensn’t know to maximize the immersion in their roleplaying experience. Introducing Normalvision could be a clash of cultures.
<NormalVision is a departure from ordinary play because the players are not expected to be the ones setting the direction of the scene. They should not be trying to change the course of the action. This might be hard for some players (or GMs) to get.>
As a player, it was hard for me “to get” initially because I didn’t consciously realize that I even had a role as the audience because I was only used to seeing the plot from a first-person, player-character perspective. Since Normalvision characters are often bystanders in the story, a role unaccustomed to by players, roleplaying can be very awkward at first. Additionally, if the players are the audience in a Normalvision scene, then the story becomes an independant entity not focusing on or defined by player-character actions. This may also be something players aren’t used to. All this said though, there’s definitely a payoff with the chance to experiment roleplaying characters you’d otherwise never pick for your main character.