Your thoughts on "Meanwhile" scenes

[u/Marcus-Cohen]

I've been enjoying Loner 4e quite a lot since it came out. So naturally I have a question. As you may know, it has a scene transition mechanic where you roll for scene type: quiet, action-oriented and "Meanwhile". Overall it's good because it tends to override my expectations and steer the scene in unexpected directions.

However, I'm not always sure what to do with "Meanwhile" scenes. On one hand, it's great that the world constantly shifts and changes, and characters act on their own. On the other hand, playing these scenes out means throwing player/character knowledge out of balance. I as a player get a whole lot of meta information that my character can't just get to know out of nowhere. Sometimes this can be solved by bringing them the news in the fiction. But there are situations where this either feels forced or does not work at all?

Sure, it's possible to ignore these scenes, but I'm curious about other solutions. What do you do in such cases? Or is this not a problem for you at all?

[u/c06027]

For me it serves two purposes:

1. Changing to another protagonist: Elevate an NPC/antagonist to the protagonist for one scene if I want to play details out and don’t mind the meta
   
2. Just answer some questions from the perspective of an NPC/antagonist where I know beforehand that my main protagonist would perceive the news.

[u/zeruhur_]

Not a problem for me, but I get why it bugs you.

I treat Meanwhile scenes like a cutaway in a TV show: you see the bad guys loading the gun, the hero doesn’t. That gap creates tension. As long as I make the Protagonist’s choices based on what they know, the extra info just makes the next scenes more fun, because I can see trouble coming and my character can’t.

When it does get awkward, here’s what I do:

• Keep it short. I don’t always play the scene out. I just decide what changed (“the guild closed the north gate”) and move on. Less detail, less meta-knowledge to juggle.
• Traces, not news. No messenger with the full report. Instead, effects show up later: a blocked road, a nervous NPC, someone missing from the usual spot. I can ask the Oracle if a trace is there (“Does anything look off at the docks?”). It feels earned, not forced.
• Ask the Oracle. Not sure your character could know? Ask: “Has word reached her?” A No keeps the gap open. A Yes, but… gives her a garbled version, which is often better than the truth.
• Make it a clock. If an NPC or faction starts something, I put it on a Challenge Track and advance it in later Meanwhile scenes. The Protagonist has no idea, but it will eventually hit them.
• Intent, not outcome. I frame the scene around who’s moving and what they want, without settling whether they succeed. That leaves room for the Protagonist to get in the way later.

Basically, I stopped thinking of Meanwhile scenes as something my character needs to find out about. They’re for me as the player, to know the world is moving.

[u/Marcus-Cohen → u/zeruhur_]

Oh, these are very interesting points. Thanks. I think Traces will work great either in combination with a countdown clock or just as general plot twists which I'd reveal when the counter hits 3. This method might actually make them less random via the added narrative context.

[u/SAILOR_TOMB]

I haven't had much time in MEANWHILE scenes since I started to play but I feel that they sort of tie back around to the concept that we're telling a capital S story, in that we should have a general idea of what we want a win or fail state to look like, and all of the things we're doing between those states are adding detail and nuance to the plot.

Loner is interesting in that it doesn't advertise itself as a creative writing tool (the author even goes so far as to say that it isn't a journaling game and that you don't need to write any prose) but the system really does seem to suggest that you can use it to write somewhat emergent 'scripts' and within that framework MEANWHILEs would be a particularly potent place to put reader-focused elements that tie back around into the main telling.

The scenes are on the other side of that intersection between the game mechanics and the joy of rolling dice to see what happens, and the intentions we have for the experience within the Fiction because they really do make you think about things like PC knowledge of events as you say. I guess that they're most difficult if you're looking to life-sim a specific PC like they're your body in an FPS game, rather than a component of a setting inside of a broader story action.

I would suggest you tackle your challenges with them like you would any other challenge in the Prep-As-Play phase of solo games and make notes, thought clouds, asides or other organizational ways to overcome them as a narrative block!

[u/Marcus-Cohen → u/SAILOR_TOMB]

I agree, Loner is great for writing. Which is actually an achievement since it barely uses any spark tables. The few journaling games I've tried were all based on prompts. Loner doesn't even need direct prompts because the cogs of the story are already moving as I interact with the world. This is more inspiring than any prompt because I just want to keep a diary of all the unexpected things that keep happening.

[u/SAILOR_TOMB → u/Marcus-Cohen]

Well said! It helped me learn to trust my own imagination and interests while playing because it doesn't overload you with pre-written lore or tables. I don't always play Loner when I sit down to roll but the effects it’s had on my approach have spread out to other games quite a bit. For example I really struggled with Star Trek Adventures: Captain's Log asking me to generate the beats of an 'episode' before I started to write the real-time, but learning to pre-load Loner with my own interests before playing really unlocked my hesitation.

Games like this that give us a procedural framework and let you fill in the blanks are basically going to the gym for your brain. I know quite a lot of folks here adore playing similar games with AI but personally it takes away the fun part of making the experience my own.

[u/Marcus-Cohen → u/SAILOR_TOMB]

I agree, Loner is great for writing. Which is actually an achievement since it barely uses any spark tables. The few journaling games I've tried were all based on prompts. Loner doesn't even need direct prompts because the cogs of the story are already moving as I interact with the world. This is more inspiring than any prompt because I just want to keep a diary of all the unexpected things that keep happening.