"Meanwhile..." - A Troupe-Style Storytelling Technique for Mutants & Masterminds

(This Article was originally posted in the Atomic Think Tank on October 22, 2025) 

Many years ago, I was playing in a long-term game of M&M when the story hit an unexpected juncture. As I'll be using this campaign as an ongoing illustration, allow me to set the scene:

The GM (Tony) 
The Players:
* Science Ape, a superintelligent gorilla inventor with a rocketpack and raygun (Me).
* Guitar Hero, a slacker and wannabe rockstar with a cosmically-powered guitar (Drew).
* Fracture, a runaway former government supersoldier turned streetwise vigilante (Steve).
* Blindside, a former celebrity athlete turned thrillseeking super-speedster (Shaun).

(L-R: Blindside, Science Ape, Guitar Hero, Fracture)

The heroes had encountered an alien who had come to Earth to beseech Guitar Hero to help save his people from a mysterious threat. While Guitar Hero and Science Ape were keen to go (especially if it meant Science Ape could get his mitts on some of that delicious alien technology!), Fracture and Blindside were less enthusiastic. Both felt their abilities would be of limited use in an outer space setting.

At the same time, Tony, our GM was starting to get burned-out and thinking of taking a break while he recovered and had the chance to do some more planning for upcoming adventures.

As it happened, Fracture's player, Steve, has been playing a lot of 'Mass Effect' and was keen to run the outer-space arc, which would not only give Tony time to recover, but would give him a chance to actually play for a bit. And so, the party was split. Guitar Hero and Science Ape went on as usual, with Shaun and Tony creating all-new, space-based characters, Voyager (a robotic hero capable of transforming into a spacecraft) and Prism (a telekinetic alien heroine who channeled her powers through a psychic gemstone). 

We began to refer to this arc as a "Meanwhile..." which, in this case, was short for "Meanwhile... in outer space!"
 
As the space arc was winding down, I suggested doing a second 'Meanwhile...' about what had happened to the members left behind on Earth while Science Ape and Guitar Hero were in space, and with that, "Meanwhile... in Hong Kong" was born.
 
During this arc, Tony, back as GM, would run a game of mean streets and deadly international intrigue as Fracture and Redline teamed up with two Hong Kong-based Heroes (the gunslinging Black Ghost Fox and superstrong Iron Grasshopper) as they foiled an attempt by Fracture's former mentor, King Tiger, to unite the major Chinese organized crime families under the control of his master, Doctor Sin.
 
After that, whenever the story called for it, or when the GM and/or players felt like a break, we'd have one of these side-arcs. Sometimes, it would be a different GM, as in the time when Blindside's player ran "Meanwhile... in Europe". Sometimes, we'd all create new characters, as in "Meanwhile... at the Benson Academy" where we created teen heroes and ran a superhero high-school based side campaign. Sometimes, it'd be a mix of existing characters and new ones (as in "Meanwhile... in Outer Space" and "Meanwhile... in Hong Kong").
 
It's a great way to combat burnout, both with players and GMs looking for a change of pace, and it simultaneously allows the group to expand the world. Later, characters from previous 'Meanwhiles' can be brought back into the game as guest-stars, team-ups or even new regular characters as each player develops a small roster of different characters they can choose to play as.

You could play an arc as villains, or as Agents of AEGIS, or pretty much anything you can think of.  We played one arc where the heroes were off-world and the Team's Support Crew had to defend the Base against revenge-seeking villains. It also allows for a greater degree of collaborative world-building. 

You might potentially use a Meanwhile... to set up future events, or shine a light on past events. At one point, for example, we ran a one-shot set in the days before WWII which served as a prelude to the next big adventure, with the team having to face the after-effects of that disastrous mission. Another one-shot Meanwhile... was set in Atlantis, and established the overall tone and current status quo of the setting and established a number of important NPC's before the heroes visited it in the following session.
 
The end result of all of this is a way of giving everyone a chance to try something new and shake off the cobwebs so that, when you return to your regular game, not only is everyone feeling revitalized, but the world and the game you're coming back to is made even more rich, detailed and immersive than it was before. The possibilities are endless.