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I’d love to spend some time to talk about the strange little ways that scene work works. Ooh, interesting sentence there.

(I am delving into a tangent that I want to geek out about. I love those sentences where you can repeat a word and it will make perfect sense. It is normally strange to repeat a word in a sentence unless you are emphasizing it, but sometimes you can repeat a word and it will make sense. Like in the way that “scene work” is a noun, it is a thing by itself, and it has a way of operating, or a way of “work”-ing. So there, the “scene works work” sentence.)

Anyway. I’d love to talk about a way to look at scenes, to break down scenes and how that really helped me with both my improvisation and my scene work found within my tabletop role playing games. We’re talking about CROW.

So, CROW stands for Character, Relationship, Objective, and Where. These are some of the base aspects, the bones that make up a scene. As these are the bones and some base aspects of a scene, an understanding of CROW will allow you to label and recognize aspects of a scene so that you can emphasize or build on them in the moment, or later on. You can look at the scene and you can pick out shiny pieces, just like, how a raven would pick out shiny little objects of interest. Let’s find those shiny objects, shall we?

Character

Character is specific to…your character in a scene. Let’s talk about this in the context of two persons scenes, which will simplify a lot. So, we are talking about you and another person, or two other players at your table. Character is who the person is which bleeds into their attitudes that they carry towards people in general. Are they standoffish? Are they friendly? Character is vital in a scene and serves as the backbone of a scene that is centered around people. If there are no people, nothing that lives, breathes, and wants–that’s just narration, there’s no drama. There’s nothing really happening. It’s just wide events, landscape shots.

And while pretty, you know, it doesn’t…nothing moves it. There’s no want in there. There’s no sentience. Nothing to push things around and make things messy, which we like to do and love to watch. Character bleeds into the rest of the base aspects, which brings us to…

Relationship

When a scene starts, it is not just a sole character that informs their decisions or actions, but the relationship between the two characters. Are they co-workers? Is one in charge of the other? Does someone have a crush on the other? Do they know that they have a crush on them? Are they scared of them? How long have they known each other? There are quite a bit of things that change about you when you are with different people.

And let’s not just talk about relationship to a person. Perhaps there is a relationship between your character and the world. If you’re regularly standoffish, but you respect a law, then you would be cordial in the presence of an officer of the law. There may be an essence of irritation, or sass. There is a fun tension between like, “I need to be polite and also I don’t have patience”. That could be really fun to play with. By exploring the complexities of their relationships and how that interacts with their beliefs, you can find new ways for your character to interact with others. Finding how your character sees another person, or defining that relationship at a meta level can help you breathe new life into your characters.

Do they want something from them? That is a little bit a part of a relationship–yes, I am aware of those people that befriend you for the sole reason that they would like to use you as a resource–but this too may lend itself into the next base aspect.

Objective

Objective is a few things. What does your character want in the scene? Or, what is being done? Or, what are all of the characters there to accomplish? Objective is something to keep your characters busy and lends momentum to a scene.

The objective of the scene can just be to better know the other person. It can just be a slice of life thing. It doesn’t have to be disarming a bomb, or solving a mystery, or escaping a dungeon.

(This is a different discussion that I would love to delve into. If you come from Dungeons and Dragons, it may feel strange to just have a slice of life scene, depending on your table.)

Objective is a mix of…what the characters want and/or what do the players want from the scene?

Sometimes your wants as a player are separate and operate against the wants of your character. Most characters–unless there’s an BDSM thing going on–your character does not want conflict. They want the smoothest way out. That’s what we are as people. And as animals, they don’t want to run into any drama, but we as cruel masters of our creations love drama.

We love what drama creates. We love how it we can directly relate to it. We love that we can interface with painful memories and struggles in a way that does not harm us in the real world. It is a way to engage with fire without consequence. There’s something attractive about that, right?

Say that there is a scene where I want my character to be humbled…because they’re just a little cocky piece of shit. And so, I will continue to play this, their cockiness and their haughtiness. Somehow if my objective (as a player) is to be humbled, I could cue in my scene partner either out of character, or in character. I could let them know that I want to explore my character being humbled and belittled by their character, or I could hint at what I want with a line like: “I’m always right, and that has never gotten us into any trouble,” as a way to hint that I as a player want you as a player to mention all the times that I have gotten us into trouble. It may feel a little awkward because nobody speaks that way in conversation, but it is a way to clue in your fellow player as a way to say: “This is what I would like to do and what I think might be fun.”

Where

Location informs different nuances between scenes that would otherwise have the same words. You are having an argument in an apartment plays very differently than having an argument in a funeral home during a funeral service. Those are two very different scenes because of their context.

The words can be the same, but the way that you deliver that will be quite different because of lots of reasons. You don’t want to be rude to the people around you, or you don’t want to blaspheme in a holy place. Perhaps you’re familiar with the space and you’re more willing to be boisterous and loud. Location is a big matter to pull from.

Pulling Ideas from Base Aspects

Now with the definitions done with, I would love to talk about different philosophies when it comes to finding interesting ideas in a scene. As an improviser I have learned that there are many different approaches to scene work and how people approach the art of improv that are vastly different. This translates nicely to your table.

One of the philosophies focus starts with focusing on you, building out a scene with those foundations. And then, as the scene grows, as you interact with each other, you build each essence of CROW. With those foundations in place, you do what makes sense; what makes sense for your character in the context of logical decisions for the character, the location, the relationship, and the objective? Something interesting to you will pop out and then you can hone in on that.

By consuming art and having an opinion on it, you will naturally have tendencies that filter to your own tastes. Are you intensely into character studies, and do you focus on the motivations of a Character? Are you a fiend for drama and do you draw on the awkwardness in a Relationship between two characters getting to know each other? Are you laser focused on project management and pursuing a mission…the plot, and do you focus on the Objective in a scene? Are you in love with genre fiction, and do you focus on aspects of a Where that define that genre?

It is through training, practice, and lots of play to figure out those shiny little nuggets that you can find in a scene to build on it in that current scene, or to hold on to to revisit later. You may want to try practicing it by talking it out. You could surgically look at a scene and discuss it candidly over the table or out of game as to what you think is interesting with your players. That can be a way for you to better understand how each of you play, and what you each want from the game and the story. Perhaps it can be a useful post-game tool!

By holding that post-game, or over the table discussion about those base aspects that you find interesting about your game, you can gain a better understanding of what you’re attracted to and what your scene partner finds interesting. You can find how they play and also, how you play and how you look at that same scene.

Are the aspects that you find interesting also compelling to the other person? Did you, and how did you catch what they found interesting? How did they try to push their interesting focus in the scene? Did you support that properly? By focusing on an aspect of the scene that is interesting to you, or by catching what your partner finds interesting, you can continue to explore and build that scene together with your scene partner. And if you can both find that interesting thing together? It makes playing in that scene, as your character, a lot more fun.

Here’s a little link for further reading on CROW. Hopefully it can help you in your games!

Links
CROW Improv Wiki