The Cutaway: A New Perspective for Your Games

 (This Article was originally posted in the Atomic Think Tank on November 15, 2024)

"Meanwhile, at the Hall of Justice..." 
                                                   - Ted Knight, 'Super Friends'

This is another technique which I've been using in my games for some time. My friend, Tony Kelly, was the first person I saw using it, so credit where credit is due.

The Cutaway is quite similar to another technique I use a lot, the "Meanwhile...". The main difference is that a "Meanwhile..." is designed to last for a story arc, while Cutaways are normally only meant for a single scene. Like a "Meanwhile...", a Cutaway is a cinematic technique which allows players to step out of their characters' perspective and view distant events. While this is normally used for foreshadowing or atmosphere-building, it can also be a tool for fleshing out aspects of a campaign, for allowing player collaboration, or even as a method of planning future adventures!

Tabletop Role-Playing Games traditionally use a first person perspective. Players take on the role of a character in the story and see, hear and experience what that character does. One of the problems with this is that, unless the players have the opportunity to extensively interact with them, it can often leave NPCs feeling flat, lifeless and two-dimensional. This can especially be true of villains. Often, these characters will have wonderful personalities, quirks and backstories that would be great to explore and experience in-game, but so many times, they're reduced to a Stat Block with dialogue.

The use of Cutaways can help with that... and with so much more.

So What ARE They, Anyway?

As said above, a Cutaway is done when the action 'cuts away' from the player-characters' perspective and the players get to see and experience story elements which their characters are unaware of. This isn't an uncommon technique in RPGs, but most of the versions I've seen are simple GM exposition where the GM describes a far away scene in vague, ominous terms in order to foreshadow later events. This is the simplest use, but maybe not the most effective. 

In the version I'm talking about, instead of the GM just describing a scene, the players each take on a role within the scene and get to contribute to the story. 

How To Cutaway

At its basic level, a Cutaway will require a piece of paper or index card per player. This card should contain, at a minimum, a name and a motive. More can be included as necessary, but you'll want to keep detail to a minimum. Remember, this is just for a single scene, so don't put in more work than you need to.

Get your players to choose a card. You can do this randomly, or give the players some information about the characters. In some versions, you can even get the players to create characters (more on that later). Don't show the cards to the players and encourage them not to show their cards to each other. Once players have their cards and know who their characters are, you can set the scene. 

Example: Tony is running a game of M&M set in Emerald City. The Sentinels have just wrapped up one story arc and the GM gives them a downtime scene. Recently, there have been news reports of a series of thefts of rare chemicals, so Rook's player says he wants to look into that. After a bit of back and forth, The Rook ends up at a Warehouse looking through a skylight as half a dozen people are loading stuff onto the back of a truck.
 He leaps down and engages them, but is surprised that they seem stronger and faster than he expected. One manages to grab him by the throat and two more start whaling in on him. Two more leap into the back as one jumps into the driver's seat and guns the engine.

Tony gives the Rook's player a Hero Point for the three who got away and there's a fight scene. At the end, before the three unconscious bad guys can be loaded into an ambulance, they start to thrash about and foam at the mouth. In minutes, their bodies shrivel until they look like twisted mummies.

He then announces that we're going to cutaway to another scene and everyone's going to play one of the three who got away. He hands out three index cards and the players take a minute to read theirs and get an idea of their character.

The GM sets the scene. You're in a lower level of a parking garage downtown and you're waiting to hand off the stolen goods to your employer. Before you went on the job, they injected you with something... said it'd help and it did. For the last few hours, you've felt invincible, but it's definitely wearing off. You feel hot and feverish. Your hands are sweating and it's all you can do to stop them shaking. You hope that, when the boss shows up, he's got something to help you come down.

A truck, looking like some sort of high-tech mobile home rolls up. Two gunmen climb out of the front cabin and a third man emerges from the back. You recognize the third man as the guy who gave you the job. He talks into a headset mic, "I'm seeing three people and...," he checks the back of the truck. "Five crates." Then pauses for a few seconds.

"Okay," he nods to the two gunmen who raise their guns to cover you, "That's half of you and a little less than half of what we sent you after." He nods in understanding and produces a small plastic case containing six syringes. Slowly and meticulously, he pulls three out and drops them onto the concrete floor before stepping on them. The glass crunches beneath his foot.

"The boss would like an explanation and," he dangles a fourth syringe between his thumb and forefinger, "make it good."

Joey, Sasha and Bruno have some talking to do. How are they going to play this? Will they turn on one another? Will they nominate a scapegoat? Who's going to speak up first? At this point, their lives are in the players' hands. 

At the conclusion of the scene, the back of the truck opens and a figure in a wheelchair emerges. His limbs are stick-thin and emaciated, barely able to support his grotesquely swollen head. 

(The sinister and diabolical form of Cortex!)

Depending on whether or not there are survivors, he might address them or the man in the suit. Maybe he congratulates the survivor(s) on staying alive another day. Maybe he wants them not to screw up again. Maybe he looks over their dead bodies and says something awful about how replaceable they are. Again, this is all up to how the players played the scene. 

Either way, you've had a memorable conclusion to one session and you've set up expectations for the next one. The players know they'll be going up against Cortex and that he has some sort of sinister scheme involving stolen chemicals, but they won't know what it is.

When the players trace the escaping crooks to the parking garage, will they find bodies or just tyre tracks? How many crushed syringes will be on the ground? If any of the henches survived, will the heroes meet them again. Maybe in betraying his allies, Joey has sealed his fate and descended even further into Cortex's organization. Maybe Bruno's proved himself ready for the next round of chemical enhancement? Who knows? Again, this is all up to the players. And when they DO meet one of the henches, there's that moment of familiarity where it's not just 'Man with Gun #2'.

Variants and Variations

Because the system is so simple, it's very easy to modify. 
 
 In one adventure, we played the crew members of a crashed spacecraft which the heroes would later discover. In another, we played various staff-members of Claremont Academy, who'd been called in to pass judgement on one of their colleagues who'd done something reckless - did they need to be punished, and if so, what would be suitable?
 We played a scene where various employees of ASTRO Labs had to act quickly during a crisis, and one where Ruling Council of Aliens had to decide on a course of action to deal with an imminent peril.
 
 Here are two options which add some extra wrinkles to Cutaways. Feel free to use these, though I'm sure it's possible to come up with a LOT more.

Variant #1. Collaborative Planning

As in the example with the ill-fated henches, this scenario involved playing villains - but instead of hapless pawns, we played the masterminds. 

Following a successful adventure, the PCs were invited to Atlantis where they would be feted by the Royal Family. Unfortunately, within the City, there exists a cabal of conspirators from different factions who see this as an opportunity to achieve their goals. As a result, each player picked a Faction to be the representative of, and to argue the benefits of their particular strategy to take advantage of the visit in order to achieve their goals.

At the conclusion of the Conclave, the GM was able to take note of all the suggestions and discussions and use those as the basis of the next adventure, basically getting the players to decide in advance what sort of nefariousness they would be called upon to deal with... an assassination attempt, widespread sabotage, or a full-on frontal assault en masse!

One of the key suggestions involved making it seem as though the outsiders were responsible, thus starting a fight between Atlantis and the surface world, something the GM had not even considered.

Variant #2. One Final Mission

In this case, the characters we were playing were given more options and were a little more tough, but not, as we'd discover, invincible.

In this variation, instead of motivations, we were given 3 Aspects to symbolise astounding powers, so a superpowered character might have "Strong as Ten Men", "Skin of Steel" and "Human Bulldozer" for instance, or "Amazing Flying Submarine", "Electro-Pistol" and "Man of Tomorrow". Meanwhile, a more human character might have "Inspiring Speech", "Give 'em Hell, Boys!" and "Last-minute save", or "Battlefield Medic", "Heal Thyself" and "Words of Compassion".

In this version of the Cutaway, the players take on the role of a group on their final mission. The way it works is that, whenever the characters reach a moment of danger, a player can nominate one of their Aspects and explain how it extricates them from that danger. At that point, the player crosses that aspect out.  

Example: The heroes are proceeding along a low gully, keeping their heads down to try and avoid enemy guns when a hideous clanking noise heralds a Panzer bearing down on them from above!
 Quickly, Sergeant Steel plants his feet and pushes against the metal juggernaut, flipping it onto its side. "So much for stealth," he says, "they'll be on us before long."
 The player crosses out Sergeant Steel's 'Human Bulldozer' aspect as the group continues at speed towards the ruins of a bombed-out church.

Once a character crosses out their final aspect, the next time they find themselves in a deadly situation, they can nominate that they're making a final stand. They sacrifice themselves, but allow their allies to escape.

In the game where we used this variation, this was used as an opening prologue. The rest of the session involved the present-day heroes trying to find a WWII era superweapon. Two of the characters in the original group actually survived the prologue, and later, the players got to meet one of them, who was able to supply them with useful information.

Again, this turns something which could simply have been a bit of colourful exposition into an immersive experience... and the players are able to collaborate with the GM on shaping the rest of the session.

Potential Pitfalls

If you have players who can't separate player from character knowledge, this technique becomes pretty much impossible (though that's a problem whether you use this technique or not).

It's important not to overuse it. It can be good to add extra flavour, but could easily lose its value if overused. It also involves quite a degree of planning for a single scene, so evaluate beforehand whether the benefits will outweigh the additional effort.

here always the possibility that players who really don't like improvisation or in-character dialogue will find it confronting or uncomfortable. In the end, you have to judge for yourself and consult with your players to determine whether this is a suitable strategy or not.