This is RPG-ology #75: Flashbacks, for February 2024.
Our thanks to Regis Pannier and the team at the Places to Go, People to Be French edition for locating a copy of this and a number of other lost Game Ideas Unlimited articles. This was originally Game Ideas Unlimited: Flashbacks, and is reposted here with minor editing [bracketed].
There is a technique used in every other form of storytelling that I never see in role playing games. I’d like to see it used here, too, so I’m going to consider how it could be done. It’s the use of flashbacks, presenting parts of the story that happened earlier.
But I’m also going to take this time to flash back to our earlier articles, in case you missed one. Of course, we did this twice before. Game Ideas Unlimited number thirteen was a look [recovered as RPG-ology #41:] Over My Shoulder, which discussed the value of looking back as part of going forward; and number twenty-six, [RPG-ology #55:] The Process, talked a bit about how we learn to be creative. Both looked back at the twelve articles from the previous quarter, and so as we complete the third quarter we look back again.
As I look back at the columns we’ve shared, I realize that in almost every case I took you back to events of another time, flashbacks perhaps of a different sort, so maybe we can learn something from them.
- In Ives Loves a Parade we started with the work of a man and then looked back at his childhood to find the reasons for it. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade used a similar technique, taking us back to the teen years of the series hero to tell us why he was afraid of snakes, and why he always wore that hat. Although this entry was about how to put together ideas that don’t belong together, we can also see how bringing a moment from the past can explain the character’s identity in the present.
- David jumped around in time and space, moving from one example to another. The point then was about simplifying; but it also shows us that there are other ways to present the events of a story than temporal sequence.
- Procession was itself a flashback, a story told in the past; within it was another flashback, a brief look at the tragic event that led to the story as told. We then were looking at how societal values can be illogical. But let’s remember that flashbacks can spring from flashbacks.
- Pain is also a flashback to a moment at which I experienced searing pain and what that was like. But the story is interesting because of the emotional impact–which may be an important element in using flashbacks.
- Dog also begins with a flashback, and I begin to wonder at the ubiquity of the technique. Although the article is considering the nature of alien intelligence, it begins by looking back.
- Flirting [renamed Identity in this series] actually starts with a flashback to an earlier article in the series, providing a bit of backstory by recalling the events we’d already covered. That’s another use for the technique–bringing back moments we should remember that help us understand moments ahead.
- Map has something of a split flashback. In considering the difference between three-dimensional space and paper representations, we went back first to the time we were exploring the halls and then, jumping ahead two days, to the moment we saw the map of where we had been. One of the advantages of flashbacks is that they can skip like this, moving from one relevant moment to another.
- While examining how value attaches to objects, Value again told several stories, flashbacks sewn together in presenting the ideas.
- I went back in Time to look at how I designed a clock for an alien race, a flashback again.
- I hope that Multiple Staging took you back to some of the great adventure stories–The Lord of the Rings, Dune, and Star Wars were our examples–as we looked at a different dramatic technique. Perhaps it’s possible to have the audience–or the players–experience the flashback mentally without going back to it openly.
- Sense was not entirely free of flashbacks. It was looking at how the differences in the senses of different characters can be used in the game–but it did use a few memories to capture this.
- Senseless, on the other hand, was pure flashback. It told the story surrounding the overwhelming sense of shock I had once in my life, giving the possibility that our characters could experience such stunning moments.
In all this, we have seen that a glance back to the past here and again helps understand the present. It’s a technique we’ve seen in film, books, television–but how do you bring it into a role playing game?
The easiest approach is certainly through the cut scene. This keeps control of the situation in the hands of the referee, as he tells the story of what happened. It could be something the characters–or one of the characters–now remembers; or it could be something that happened outside their knowledge that is being related by a non-player character; or it could even be events of which the characters have no knowledge but the players are learning through the tale told. This can provide much vital information; but in some ways it is less like a game, more like plot exposition.
If the flashback is to something that was played before, it might be possible to remind the players, and even get them to tell the events as they remember them during the game. This would seem most natural as a flashback–a memory coming to mind.
A particularly skilled and daring referee who knows his objectives might dare try to play out the flashback during the game. It would start with telling the player that his character remembers something that happened many years before. To use Indiana Jones for an example, tell him that he remembers being on a scout trip and seeing a group of men removing a valuable artifact from the old cave, and then ask him what he did. Play it just like a real game, but be certain you stay far enough ahead of the player in your planning that you can prevent him from undoing anything in the story that’s necessary to the present–he can’t kill someone who has appeared since or must yet appear, or thwart the schemes that have led to the present situation, or fail to thwart the schemes that would have led to a different situation. If there’s a personal reason why the antagonist hates the character, let it be created through a moment of retroactive play, for better or worse.
There are probably other ways to make a flashback work in a game. As I say, I’d like to see it done. Perhaps you can tell me how you do it.
[Next week, something different.]
Previous article: Senseless.
Next article: Derivative.