Justin Achilli

When we last left our kanban cards, they had ambitiously occupied the foreshadowing category. I had removed them and left their pins in that column, ready to foreshadow them in my game. That's why I had them with me as physical artifacts at the game table: to remind me to use them. You don't have to take these to the table with you if you're the fast-and-loose sort who keeps it all in his head, but the tangible card is part of the appeal of kanban. I won't issue you a citation for doing it wrong. Or rather, I will, but it's not a moving violation, so it won't affect your insurance.

Anyway, at the game table, I drop a hint or two about my upcoming events. These don't have to be anything specific or address any defined criteria. They're just there to give the players a sense that things happen with meaning in the game world, and to give the puzzle-solver players something to runimate over.

Note that I don't plan to spring the encounter during this game session. Right now, I'm just setting the stage, testing the waters, or using whatever pained simile strokes your esophagus like a pet owner giving the poor animal a pill.

Here's what I tease:

Example One: Vampire Chronicle (Blood Cult)

A ghoul the Kindred encounter sneers dismissively at them when they offer a bit of vitae in exchange for some sensitive information. "My master and his congregation see to it that I'm provided for," he replies. It seems like standard my-regnant-is-better-than-your-sire brinksmanship, but it certainly indicates that something is happening beneath the surface. A savvy Vampire player will pick up on the ominous innuendo, but it's not required for the current plot thread to move forward, nor is it critical to manifest the blood cult's presence down the road.

Example Two: D&D Campaign (Gnoll Ambush)

As the party makes its way out of the Silent Valley toward Duke Torgal's castle they hear the jackal-like howls of the gnolls, which are very different from the wolves that normally lurk in the valley. They mention that they're doubling their guard, paying acute attention, or taking another precautionary measure.

Obviously, the D&D example is much more direct than the Vampire example, but that's okay. In the D&D game, my players are used to a more action-oriented style of play, so ominous portents usually signify imminent kickass. My Vampire players are more used to culling through various cryptic statements for hidden meaning... when they're not blundering into their fellow Kindred's best-laid traps, of course. This is wholly a matter of taste and narrative. Decide your intent, and play to your group in the way you want them to interpret the foreshadowing.

After the game concludes, I have a decision to make. Having capital-F Foreshadowed, like my column on the kanban chart tells me to do, is the encounter "primed," as it were? If the answer is yes, well, hell, I can move it up into the Ready to Use column and actually turn it loose next time (or whatever time works best). The vast majority of the time, this is going to be the answer. Even if the players don't respond at all, that's okay. They've been introduced to the concept, so it can enter the game gracefully.

If the answer is no, I have some questions to answer. Why is this not ready for use? Did it fly completely over the players' heads? Maybe it needs to go stay in the Foreshadowing stage for a little more teasing. Did the players react negatively -- did they say, "Oh, man, gnolls again?" or take some course of action to steer themselves well away from the expereince? Maybe it needs a little more retooling to satisfy their tastes. If they hated the very idea of it, and not in the savoring mock-dread sort of fashion, maybe it's best to ditch it entirely.

Whatever the case, the card goes somewhere. It's okay to send it back a step for more conceptual work, to be teased again when the idea is more solid or satisfying. It's okay to send it forward into the Ready to Use column if you as GM think it's time is nigh. It's even okay to throw the card away entirely. Not every idea is golden, and that opens a new card slot in the Planning stage to cultivate a new idea.

Back to the examples.

Example One: Vampire Chronicle

Let's say the ghoul's coment has intrigued one of the players. He mentions that he wants to take the haughty creep aside and coax more information out of him with a little "percussive therapy." We play out the scene, I tease a bit more, and then I take my card home at the end of the session and advance it to the Ready to Use column.

Example Two: D&D Campaign

The players have taken immediate precautions, which is gratifying, but I've teased it too soon. They think the creature howling through the valley is coming now. Too soon. I don't want to rush the ambush, so I lay off the foreshadowing. In fact, I keep it in the Foreshadowing column, so I can tease it again next session, or whenever the best time would be to revisit the idea.

The important thing here is to decide what you want to do with the idea. Advance it? Polish it? Throw it away? And again, this all sounds like a lot of work, but it's really lot. It's just an organization tool to help you keep track of your storylines.

In this GM exercise, an idea "overflows" into the next pipeline-column when it's ready -- when it can no longer be contained by its current column -- or it "drips down" into a prior stage of iteration. It's not a failure to take an idea a step back, you're just placing it back in the idea incubator.

Next, we'll cover Ready to Use and Revisit. See ya soon!

Kanban is a lean-production technique used to maximize productive output while reducing overhead and bottlenecks. Kanban itself means "billboard," and that's part of the process -- the kanban practicioner tracks the progress of a production item via corkboard and note cards. When a product finishes one stage of production, it moves over into the next column, and then on to the next when that's complete, etc.

I'd like to adapt this technique to gamecraft.It's something that a player would probably never see, but I think it'd be a great way for a gamemaster to organize encounters. It seems like a good way to handle key plot events and balance them with enough idea creation (in whatever method you use) to know when you're done with planning and ready to spring them on the players.

This all sounds like a lot of work, and far less spontaneous than many people like to be around the table. In practice, it's fast. It's actually not a lot of work -- it's just a way of keeping track of what you're doing. It can be precisely as spontaneous as you wish, as you're the one taking the notes, deciding how much information you need to prepare yourself for a game, and when it's sufficiently done to move into its next column. The idea stays strongly in your mind because you've physically moved the card -- you've committed to moving an artifact, rather than just having a vague idea in your head or scribbled onto a notepad. That's why companies practicing "lean" production and "agile" development use it. I'm just extrapolating it from a work-management framework to a game-mastering framework.

A four-column arrangement would handle this fairly well, I think. The columns I'll use are Planning, Foreshadowing, Ready to Use, and Revisit. As I complete each step of the encounter, I'll move the card one step to the right on the kanban board. Also, I'll limit the number of cards that can occupy the board at any one time to seven. This will help me keep a number of irons in the fire, but will prevent me from losing focus or unraveling too many plot threads at a single time.

I'll present two different examples here, one for a story driven system (Vampire) and one for a more mechanically sustained system (D&D). I wouldn't keep these on the same board because I wouldn't want them confused. The fantasy scenario would be out of place in the Vampire chronicle, obviously.

Planning

At this stage, I'm still working on the idea. I take a note card and write a brief synopsis -- two words, nothing more than the barest bones of the idea -- and write it on the card. On the opposite side of the card, I'll place the encounter's notes as they come to me.

This card resides here until the planning is done. When I'm ready to start teasing it into play, I'll move it into the foreshadowing column, but I'm not there yet. I'm still making notes.

Example One: Vampire Chronicle

On the synopsis side of the card, I write "Blood Cult." On the back of the card, I scribble enough notes to give me substance to work with. I write "A powerful elder has been maintaining a cult of mortal worshipers and jeopardizing the Masquerade. That's all I need for the narrative style of play driving Vampire. I can drop the clue and see how the players react, so this is done. I move it over into the Foreshadowing column.

Example Two: D&D Campaign

On the synopsis side of the card, I write "Gnoll Ambush." On the back of the card, I jot down a small stat block for the gnolls, maybe a rough sketch of a map where the ambush might occur, any treasure, and the usual stuff I'll need for a combat scenario. However, I also not the gnolls' motivations -- they've been hired by a corrupt noble to put an end to the do-gooding party of adventurers. She liaises with the gnolls through a repulsive toady -- you don't think she'd talk to the creatures themselves, do you? Into the Foreshadowing column it goes.

On game night, I take the relevant card off the board, but I leave the pushpin where I removed it. This is to remind me where the card was, and give me the chance to consider its placement after the game.

Next, we'll cover the Foreshadowing stage. Stay tuned!