stepnix | Scene Prompts - Princess Wing

I keep mentioning this bit of tech/framework so I might as well write out what I mean by it, with some examples. By the end of this series I want to demo how I'm writing scene prompts for my current project.

The first game that got me thinking about scene prompts as a distinct bit of design tech was Princess Wing. When you create a magical girl in PW, you fill out a table of your character's hobbies, interests, or personal traits, each corresponding to a card value in a poker deck. During the game's investigation phase, you play cards to set scenes based on those cards, like playing the 4 of Hearts to play out a bit of chemistry class (your character's strong subject), or the 10 of Clubs to play out a scene reflecting on your character's future dreams. If the scene advances the story, you tick up an investigation clock.

[Note: "Advances the story" is determined by the GM, which means it's possible for this to play out more restrictively for a specific group, but the game is clear that the GM isn't supposed to plan things out ahead of time so that information can only be found in math class, or a specific location. The players are invited to justify their scenes by introducing bits like "My club president might be helpful here" or "I've seen them before at my favorite restaurant," and the game flows much more smoothly if the GM is generally permissive about how scenes relate to the investigation.]

The combat phase is all about managing the cards you play to get your desired effects on the mechanically defined board-state. In the investigation phase, what you do doesn't determine the mechanical output, just the decision to set a scene at all. The clock ticks up the same regardless. Instead, choosing what kind of scene you want to play is making a decision about what feels interesting or sensible based on your prewritten Life Tags and random hand of cards. This is theoretically more limiting than "start any kind of scene you want," but... I don't always know what I want! Getting a bunch of scenes to choose from makes things easier for me, and can take things in directions that people weren't expecting, but appreciate anyway. That's why the scene prompts in Princess Wing are so intriguing to me: They put authorial/directorial responsibility in the hands of the players, but give you a little more support so you don't need to come up with the ideas ex nihilo.