This post about second acts continues a discussion of dramatic structure in games. The introductory post in this series is called I, II, III, and the post about first acts is First Act, Ask Questions Later.

What do we know about second acts?

They’re the meat of the thing, the span when the main business of the story gets done. Act two is the middle, running half or more of the overall length in minutes or pages or whatever. If we’re talking about films, the second act is when the chief dramatic question gets answered, in the negative or affirmative. (If we’re talking about plays or novels, that may be true, too, but let someone else decide.)

I’m going to keep arguing that what goes for drama in general also goes for RPGs (tabletop RPGs, anyway). They’re more like stories than games, even for your narrativists and simulationists. So let’s turn back to card games and board games.

There are two critical lessons narrative media have for us as game designers.

The required reading for the rest of this post are the comments Jeremy Bernstein and Matt Coville left on the first act post. Go on, now; the rest of this will be here when you get back.

The first second-act takeaway is that the second act does not map directly to the thing we care about overall. Let me find the formatting for “center,” dig up the HTML entities list for math symbols, and say that again.

Second Act Question ≠ Overall Question

Although they’ll almost always be closely intertwined, and although the former will almost always point toward the latter, the mid-game and the game itself are not the same thing.

To revisit Jeremy’s example, success at the “interactions” stage of Blokus speaks to but does not identify the game’s winner. A player whose expansions were wicked-smart at the beginning, and who left himself just the right sized holes for the end, can definitely win a game of Blokus even if he’s beaten around the board in the middle stages.

Establishing a beachhead in France does not win you a game of Axis and Allies.

As it should be, all of this. If the beginning and end don’t add texture and uncertainty, why have them? A decent game designer would eliminate them as pointless on instinct alone, in the absence of any formal consideration. (But eliminating them isn’t the solution; that’s the chief failure of many a 45-minute Eurogame: all the texture’s been whittled out.) The better designer makes sure each segment has a unique flavor.

The second second-act lesson is that the second act’s got to be divisible into smaller pieces. There may be reasons past the obvious one, but the obvious one is sufficient: A second act in all but a short story or parlor game lasts too long to command attention for its duration.

The critical thing is that the smaller pieces must individually command attention, asking and answering interesting questions in and of themselves, and apart from the overall question of the second act.

Think filmicly. Your stock heist flick, whose second act concerns the heist itself — whether it will succeed or fail — is broken into interesting sub-questions like, “Can the heroes get the widget,” and “Can they convince the Shady Guy to help them.” In any given moment, you’re wrapped up in the immediate question, only vaguely aware that the immediate question also points to the resolution of the act overall.

So too with games. In the moment of a game of Risk 2210, you’re trying to figure out whether you can break up South America to deny your opponent the continent bonus with much more attention then you’re thinking about how you’re going to win the whole freaking game. You just can’t keep the whole thing in your mind at once.