#RPGaDAY2020 BUFFY 16B: DRAMATIC

#RPGaDAY2020 BUFFY SEASON

16B: DRAMATIC

“A dramatic scene is the easiest way to get through the talent show, because it doesn’t require an actual talent.”
The Puppet Show

Everything is so turgid when you’re in high school, everything is so powerful, so dramatic. I don’t think there is a time in life when you really feel that way except in high school. I’ve said, and I will say it until I’m in my grave, that high school is a horror movie and a soap opera, and I was trying to capture that in the show.
Joss Whedon, Empire interview

Buffy The Vampire Slayer is an urban fantasy superheroic action horror comedy drama. Drama isn’t high on that list, but sometimes it takes over.

Buffy also runs on Drama Points, its term for OOC boosts for when the player wants to do something impressive and/or meta. The name ain’t a coincidence. It’s a rule for the big move, the big closeup, both a mechanical I Win button and a spotlight grabber. (As well as for I Think I’m Okay, an obvious undercutting move the show uses a lot too, and the classic example of the Plot Twist rule is an undercut as well.)

It’s easy to run the game in early Monster Of The Week mode and not make the big drama a feature. Going for the drama takes players being very on board. If they aren’t, you can do the big drama at one remove with NPCs...

And the characters are aware of the dramatic effect of their actions as well as other genre savvy. Buffy makes her declaration of who she is by interrupting Giles’s monologue about the slayer, defeats her first MOTW with a big dramatic distraction, and sometimes calls foes out to get them to focus on her. Angel is Mr. Billowy Coat King Of Pain, and a lot of the humour about him is when the style fails. And Spike is a huge drama llama, who was sired because he stormed out of a moment of pain and constructed a brawler and melodramatic villain persona for himself.

So...

2.04: These Our Actors

The drama club are putting on a play. There’s no way this can result in supernatural weirdness like the play becoming real or anything, right?

“So, uh, how many people die at the end? Oh...”