by Guy Milner

A few weeks ago, I got to take the upcoming one-on-one DramaSystem game from Robin Laws, Page Turners, out for a spin. It’s a tight, intense system that, for me, stiffens up some of the looser improv-heavy stuff in Hillfolk, and really delivers a satisfying one-shot experience. But don’t just believe me – we also recorded and released the session on our actual play channel, Unconventional GMs – check it out here.

First, my bona fides. I’ve run – and played Hillfolk several times. I’ve played with Jag – my fellow player – loads of times before, on-channel and off – and we’ve both got fairly eclectic tastes in games. We were both really taken with Page Turners, and I’ve tried to consolidate some tips below, if you want to take it out for a spin.

Invest in Set-Up

At the start of Page Turners, you review all the GMCs in the playbook and decide what your protagonist’s Unmet Need is for each of them – what your protagonist wants, but isn’t going to get – at least not immediately. This can feel a bit awkward, as several if not most of the GMCs the protagonist will meet for the first time during the session. Instead of questioning how your protagonist would know, think of this as your actual session prep – you are working out what sort of scenes you want to see in the game together.

Be prepared to speculate what these could look like or the reasons behind them, but don’t nail too much down – and hold on to these ideas lightly. In the course of play it’s possible that these relationships and needs will change as the fiction develops, and that’s fine! What you’re creating here is a potential list of scenes – if in doubt, have the protagonist ask for what they want – or have a GMC make it difficult to get. It’s also possible that some of these GMCs won’t even make it into the game – that’s also fine! In our playthrough, Dorothy Parker was an extra in the story – which wasn’t great for our protagonist, as she was his confidante, but it worked fine!

Take It Easy

One-on-one play can be really intense – there’s no down-time to daydream or be an audience, and in a game like Page Turners, you’ll both be paying close attention all the time. Be prepared to take more frequent breaks than you might do normally. In our 2 hour session we had breaks after each book (so about every 40 minutes or so) where we stepped away from the game, got a coffee, and speculated a little on what we thought would happen.

Good practice in Page Turners, as with many GMless games, is to be prepared as the game goes on, to call out scenes that might be interesting – “hey, looks like we might have a gunfight at the docks – are you cool with that?” – “I reckon Delia might plant the booze on Steve anyway – does that work?” – there’s no foul to give yourselves things to potentially work towards. But, as with the planning, hold onto these lightly – the narrative might go in some unknown directions. 

There were a couple of times during our game where we both had to take a minute and re-adjust, because we’d surprised ourselves where it was going. You can plan one step in advance, but no more than that!

Start Late, Get Out Early

This is explicit scene-framing advice in the book, but it bears repeating – start your scenes as late as you can, and cut them as early as you can. Once a petition has been granted or refused, you need to call the scene! This isn’t just for reasons of pacing, either – if you carry on playing, you’ll end up either replaying the request or another request will pile up – and before long you’re mashing scenes together and it’s not clear where you’re going.

Your first few scenes might take a while to warm up to the tight pacing that the game thrives on, though – that’s fine – we need to see what the characters are like a bit – but always frame a scene with a petition in mind. Otherwise, you’ll end up wandering. Later scenes can be shorter and tighter (and sometimes super-short – in an earlier playtest one scene was a character being given a written invitation and either accepting or refusing it – maybe 30 seconds of play!).

Enjoy Yourselves

For all that Page Turners might seem daunting, after the first few scenes – when you’ve filled out the characters a bit and are more secure in your roles – it really is tremendous fun. It’s really forgiving, too – if you’re stumped keep going back to unmet needs, or what the last scene was, or (if you’re the GM) the suggested scenes for that book. The usual improv advice “do the obvious thing” also applies here, so don’t over-think it. Go ahead and get those pages turned!