2-Person Scenes. Coach will provide players with a commonly known (whether through life or media) situations and players will perform an abridged (2-4 minute) version of this situation/interaction that is not funny or unusual, but as accurate as possible. Encourage players to hit the major Tropes/Mile Markers/ Plot Points of these situations. Begin with a greeting and end with a farewell.
Review the major plot points (likely 5-7 points in the scene). Redo the scene from the very beginning with the same players, only this time allow them to find something unusual/a game to play. The concession is that they must hit all of those plot points, meaning they can’t get hung up on the first game move. They must leave stuff behind.
Common examples:
• Apple Genius Appointment – Hello, Explanation of Issue, Symptom Questioning, Diagnosis, Prescribed Action/Resolution, Farewell!
• Babysitter Parent Rundown – Hello, Explanation of Children, Food Explanation/ Ask about Allergies, Bedtime/Brush Teeth, Television, Emergency Contact, Bye!
• Doctor Checkup – Hello, Checking Chart, Symptom Questioning/Explanation, Check Vitals, Diagnosis, Prescription, Farewell!
• Cop Pull Over – License and Registration, Questioning, Explanation of Violation, Running Plates, Resolution, Farewell
Coach Notes:
• Discourage players from being too unusual/interesting in initial scenes. Focus on accuracy.
• In the second scene, if the group has trouble resting the game while moving on, encourage them to “be boring” in between game moves. “Just go back to what you were doing. Be normal. Be boring. You will find an opportunity to play this game again.”
• Note that these instances where we return to the base reality allow for the game moves to really stand out.
• While noting: “We only ever get to (second or third explorative) game move if we leave that first one behind. So once you’ve played that first game move, bury it, kill it, get away from it, so we actually play the game some more instead of just talking about the very first move.”