Understanding the Backpack

After narrating quite a few games over the years, it’s impossible to escape the similarity between roleplaying games and films. Unlike a film director, I have only the loosest grasp on the plot of the story, allowing my heroes to discover what interests them most in the world they’re exploring. Have they been trapped on a pseudo-Mediterranean island after the murder of their inn-keeper only to become fascinated by the rumour of man-eating plants in the wilderness? It’s fine with me if they never solve the murder. Likewise, while running a backstory episode for another party’s warlock, we discovered his mother was a mad-woman bent on redeeming her family’s legendary fall from grace by bathing the city in blood¹.

Ultimately, we need evocative scenes to ensure an inspiring session. The third step of the Eight Steps of Lazy RPG Prep as defined by Mike Shea is outlining potential scenes. He writes the following:

With a strong start in hand, we can then outline a short list of potential scenes that might unfold. This step exists mostly to make you feel as though you have a handle on the game before you start. However, as GMs, all of us must always be ready to throw our potential scenes away when the game goes in a different direction — as it often does. Usually, it’s enough to come up with only a few words per scene, and to expect one or two scenes per hour of play. At other times, you might skip this step completely if you don’t think you need it.

Because a roleplaying game is so different from a movie, we should call attention to two pieces of Mike’s advice. First, all of us must always be ready to throw our potential scenes away when the game goes in a different direction, and second, it’s enough to come up with only a few words per scene. I’ll admit my scene definitions are rarely as sparse as Mike recommends; I love to write. But I aspire to keeping things short. With each game I’ve run, I’ve outlined more and more scenes per session to ensure I’m not caught flatfooted by something the heroes choose to do, but as the narrators, we can never think of everything.

When planning scenes, it’s helpful to consider what resources the heroes might find in the scene enabling them to triumph. Sometimes we want to consider what resources we should deprive them of before they enter the scene, if possible. In the Legend in the Mist game, all of these resources live in something called the Backpack. This needn’t be a physical backpack. It could be the hero’s pockets. It could be an extra large satchel they must dig through to find what they’re looking for. Or, in the case of the classic Christmas movie, Die Hard, it might be the extra-dimensional pocket space all action heroes use to store their equipment.

Our heroes shouldn’t turn into loot goblins lurching from place to place under a burden of every semiprecious item they’ve ever found. If something seems important, it can go in the backpack. When it doesn’t seem important any more, expire it out of the backpack via narrative means. Heroes can always take an action to find things in their environment whether we’re playing Legend in the Mist or Dungeons and Dragons. They’re unlikely to find ammunition in random boxes — no matter what video games have taught us — but it’s surprising what useful things an average room contains. Let’s consider how the narrator deals with John McClane’s backpack from scene to scene.

The inciting incident is when Hans Gruber and his gang arrive. They immediately fire off rounds to instil fear in the partygoers, catching McClane’s attention. To relax after his long cross-country flight, McClane took off his shirt, socks, and shoes. He only had time to grab his gun — he’s American after all — before escaping the roundup. He exits this scene with a pistol, and a few rounds of ammunition.

Backpack

• Pistol
• Few rounds of ammunition

In a later scene, McClane kills his first thief. Before sending this blonde German lad down in the elevator to taunt Hans, McClane takes his radio, lighter, and a rifle. Offering the promise of a quick end to the conflict, the radio prompts McClane to head to the roof to summon help. After he’s rebuffed by incredulous emergency operators, he exchanges shots with two thieves. While making his escape, he loses the rifle while climbing down the ventilation shaft.

Backpack

• Pistol
• Few rounds of ammunition
• Radio
• Lighter

When Policeman Al arrives, McClane tries to attract his attention by smashing out a window. Instead he attracts the attention of two thieves. After McClane dispatches these thieves, he’s used his few rounds of ammunition. However, he’s able to steal another rifle from the thieves. He also picks up a pack of cigarettes while talking with Hans on the radio.

Backpack

• Pistol
• Radio
• Lighter
• Rifle
• Pack of cigarettes

During the next couple of scenes, McClane enjoys several cigarettes until the police turn on their night lights. Around that time, he checks the pack to discover he has only three remaining. This converts his pack of cigarettes to three cigarettes. While Hans talks to the police and makes his bogus demands, McClane smokes another cigarette: three cigarettes → two cigarettes.

Backpack

• Pistol
• Radio
• Lighter
• Two cigarettes

In a later scene when McClane discovers Hans under the roof, he offers him one of the two remaining cigarettes. This removes the two cigarettes, and we don’t see McClane smoking in the rest of the film. He then offers Hans an empty pistol. Hans’ men arrive after McClane and Hans enjoy some verbal sparring and chase McClane into the ancient data centre. After a shootout, he escapes with glass embedded in his feet.

Backpack

• Radio
• Lighter
• Rifle

McClane recovers in a bathroom where he uses his undershirt to bandage his wounded foot. Although he didn’t have an undershirt in his backpack, a narrator would agree it exists. It’s not a great bandage, but he’s an action hero, he’ll be fine. After he leaves Karl hanging from some chains below the helicopter pad, he picks up a new pistol and heads up to the roof looking for his wife. To get the party-goers to head back down, he fires his rifle into the air, drawing the ire of the maniac FBI agents. As he jumps off the roof to avoid the explosion and FBI sniper, he fires most of the bullets in his handgun into the window to break the window.

Backpack

• Radio
• Lighter
• Pistol
• Rifle

Because this is a movie, his low ammo isn’t an issue until it makes for more tension. That moment comes when he heads downstairs. The building is exploding all around him. Christmas trees tumble over. He has only two bullets. He’ll have to make them count. We see him punch one thief, knocking him out. Then we get the showdown with Hans and the Huey Lewis Impersonator.

Backpack

• Radio
• Lighter
• Pistol
• Rifle
• Two bullets

He threatens Hans and Huey with the rifle, but Hans has Holly at gunpoint. In a grand gesture, McClane tosses away his empty rifle and puts his hands on his head. Just as the bad guys get comfortable sharing a laugh, BANG BANG.

Backpack

• Radio
• Lighter
• Pistol

As John McClane walks out of the building wrapped in a fireman’s jacket and shares a manly hug with Al, does he still have the radio, lighter, or pistol? Who cares? Like all the other things he picked up during the night, they were only important during the scenes in which he needed them.

Unless… Argyle turns into a Christmas zombie while driving them home, and McClane traps him in the limo, stuffs his trousers in the petrol pipe, and uses the lighter to set it all ablaze.

At the end of the adventure, the narrator and player should decide whether any of the remaining tags in the hero’s backpack are important enough to spend effort to retain. Do you think John McClane will need that lighter for the next adventure? Or will he pick up what he needs as he goes?

¹ Total props to Chris, who role-played the mom for that session. He really embodied the mad-woman role beautifully. After that, we just knew the mom had to be the Big Bad for the adventure.