In Four Colors al Fresco, there are several units of time, all derived from the comic books that are its inspiration. The shortest of these is the Panel. A Page is usually longer, consisting of dozens of Panels strung together, but it may be as short as a Panel, or as long as an Issue. An Issue is an entire evening's play, while a Miniseries is a series of Issues that together comprise a single plot.
Binding all of this together are the Titles, which serve as an organizational scheme for all of the Issues and Miniseries.
A Panel is the shortest unit of time in the game. It is the amount of time it takes to complete one simple action, such as punch the villain, lift the sinking ship, speak a line of dialog, sneak across the room, or witness a lightning strike. If an action is more complex, such as executing a complex martial arts kata or delivering a monologue, it requires multiple Panels. Likewise, the results of an action can take multiple Panels -- while punching the villain might only take one panel, the villain could take several more Panels to fly across the room and smash through the wall. If in doubt, refer to this simple test: could it be reasonably illustrated in a single panel of a comic book?
There are no units of time shorter than the Panel. While a few characters (particularly super-fast Ws) will be able to take multiple actions during a single Panel, the game doesn't track time in units small enough to differentiate them. Also, you will notice that a Panel is not a fixed length. In relation to the world of the game, some variance will occur. As an extreme example, if you have two super-fast Ws fighting, and no other characters involved, a Panel might correspond to one of their actions. At the other extreme, if the only thing happening is an inventor working on a project, or a sneak searching an empty house, a Panel could encompass minutes, hours, or possibly even days.
The only time a Panel becomes anything like fixed is when multiple characters are involved. Even then, it may vary in length from Panel to Panel. But so long as anybody is engaged in a typical-speed action, the rest of the characters use that as their reference point for a Panel. So, if during a fight one of the characters is attempting to build an ornithopter, and another is sneaking out of the room to get the villain's secret plans, each of those actions would now take several Panels. In the meantime, the W with superspeed would be accomplishing several actions each Panel. It is in these situations that the Panel can be used to aid in conflict resolution. If two characters are trying to accomplish something where it matters which gets done first, consider their actions in terms of Panels. Whichever can be accomplished in the fewest number of Panels succeeds. Only if they take the same number of Panels (often 1) do you need to directly resolve the actions. Comparing Panels is particularly useful when two characters' actions interfere with one another, but they aren't in direct conflict.
Panels, in addition to not being of fixed duration, are not necessarily linear. If a large group of characters is engaged in an activity, it is impossible to try and keep track of all of them, and properly order their every action. So don't even try. Instead, use the conventions of the comic book: cut back and forth between the different characters. The best way to do this is to consider actions in terms of logical groupings, rather than duration, and then move back and forth among them whenever they logically intersect. This will often involve jumping around in time, playing through several Panels of one character, then playing through the Panels of an ally, narrating actions that had to have occurred simultaneously. The only time you need to "synchronize" Panels is when one cluster of characters now wants to interact with another. Obviously, if one hero defeats the villain she's fighting and decides to go help a friend, that is a time catch that friend up. You also want to switch back and forth some, even when not necessary, just so that no player has to sit uninvolved for too long. Other clues as to when to switch point of view or bring two streams of Panels together are such actions as shouting for a comrade's help, deciding to wait for an action on the part of someone (friend or foe) the hero isn't currently engaged with, or withdrawing from the primary arena. While all of these techniques have many situations they may be applicable in, the two most common will be when the heroes split up and during combat.
The Cardinal and Renaissance Man are facing Chameleon and Mythic Beast, and must defeat them in order to save some hostages trapped in a cage dangling over a pool of sharks. The Cardinal charges at Mythic Beast, currently in the form of the Nemean Lion, so the Storyguide starts there. They play through the conflict between The Cardinal and Mythic Beast until the SG decides Renaissance Man's player has waited long enough. Then he switches over, segueing with "Meanwhile…", and they play for a similar amount of time, irrespective of whether they cover the same amount of game time as she did with The Cardinal. She switches back and forth like this a couple more times, always at dramatic points, until Renaissance Man defeats Chameleon. At this point, it might be necessary to bring the two heroes to the same point in time, but it turns out that Renaissance Man's player decides that The Cardinal will have to take care of himself, and saving the hostages is more important. He leaps to, but Chameleon, defeated but not out, uses a last bit of energy to throw the switch releasing the cage. Renaissance Man isn't going to be strong enough to catch the cage on his own, so obviously The Cardinal's player wants to help. The SG now has two possibilities. He can declare that the events played through to date have taken the same amount of time, and The Cardinal may react however he wishes. Or, he could declare that The Cardinal still has several Panels before the cage is dropped, and play through them, with his player now knowing what is going to happen, and having extra incentive to try and defeat, or at least disengage, Mythic Beast quickly. Note that the SG should not just declare that it "already happened", since dramatic moments like this are exactly the points where the hero should have a chance to have an impact. The only exception to this being if there is some reason the character could not have known about it. Whichever route is chosen, if The Cardinal and Renaissance Man end up working together, there will only be one stream of Panels, with no need to go back and forth, unless they were actually part of a larger fight, and there are still other little clusters engaged.
Pages are a very different sort of time unit. Rather than being designed to segregate actions, or otherwise aid in action resolution, Pages are intended to aid with story structure. A Page is everything that takes place at more-or-less one time, and in more-or-less one place, as an interconnected series of events. In other words, a scene. Pages are special to the game because a great many things are governed by them. Generally, Main characters remain injured or hindered only for the duration of the Page. Many Ws have Powers that are limited to the Page -- and, if in doubt, you can assume that Powers and so forth end with the Page.
The Issue is an entire evening's (or afternoon's) play. It is a unit of time used mostly on the meta-game level, as an element of story. Ideally, the Issue should have a structure, most of which is consistent from Issue to Issue. The beginning of each Issue should set the scene and introduce the plot. If it is the 2nd or later part in a Miniseries, it should start with a brief recap of the Miniseries up to that point. If it is standing on its own, or is the first Issue of a Miniseries, it should get to the main plot as quickly as possible. You might even start it in media res, and then fill in the back story either through narration or played-out flashback. This is not to say that an Issue should never have a slow or mysterious start, just that such Issues should be the exception.
The ending of an Issue is similarly formulaic. Every Issue should end with at least some things unresolved. Most Issues should end with a blatant cliffhanger. Doubly so if they are part of a Miniseries (and not the final Issue). While the final Issue of a Miniseries should resolve the major plot, even there you should sow the seeds of something new -- perhaps a hook for the next plot.
Something else that is normally part of an Issue's ending are meta-game awards. It is usually immediately after the end of an Issue that the Storyguide hands out any reward Storypath Cards.
The internal structure of an Issue is much more flexible. If your sessions are long enough, you should duplicate the structure of the Issue in miniature, and repeat. So if it's an action plot about breaking into the villain's lair and defeating him, you can build up to that final climax with several lesser climaxes, as the heroes overcome successively-tougher obstacles and/or henchmen. And if it's a mystery plot, they should start by uncovering a little mystery, which when "solved" leads to a bigger mystery, and so on.
The next-larger unit of time is again one of the story, rather than the game. A Miniseries is any series of Issues which together tell one story. Oftentimes, a story spills over the bounds of a single Issue. As soon as you have a single plot stretching over two or more Issues, you have a Miniseries. The Issues that comprise a Miniseries may come from one or many Titles, and will often come from several different Titles if different Storyguides handled different Issues in the Miniseries.
The Title is not a unit of time, but is nonetheless an organizational unit. A Title is all of the stories about a particular W or group of Ws. In the case of individuals, it is often, but not always, the same as the W's name, or a close derivative thereof. The most important thing to know about a Title is which characters are the Main characters -- the ones who appear in it almost without fail.
Each game of Four Colors al Fresco will probably involve several different Titles. At the very least, each character has a Title of her own. Usually, there is also a Main Title, within which all of the players' characters are Main characters. When someone is Storyguiding, her character will usually be absent. Unless she says otherwise, it is assumed her character is having adventures in her own Title, and she may detail what those are. Oftentimes in dialog once the character returns, when next that participant is a player. Whenever an Issue begins, part of the introduction should be the SG announcing which Title it takes place within. Usually, it will be the Main Title, but it may be in one of the characters' individual Titles, with the rest of the characters Crossing Over26.
Each Title has Storypath Cards associated with it. Only the Main characters of that Title may use these Storypath cards, and only during an Issue of that Title. Playing them is just the same as usual -- the Storyguide only has veto power, not editing power, but the player gets to try again in the event of a veto, and other players have to approve effects on their characters. However, the rules for replenishing these cards are significantly different from the ones the players hold. The Title starts out without any cards. Instead of a random draw or reward for play, the cards of the Title come directly from the Storyguide. Any time the SG fudges strongly against the favor of the players, she should place a Storypath card into the Title. This may be a randomly drawn card, or the SG could have a small stack of selected cards (generally the more "powerful", plot-oriented ones) reserved for precisely this use. Since the SG is constantly adjusting the story to make it a better experience for all involved, this is a fairly nebulous standard. A good rule of thumb is to look at these as "negative" Storypath cards -- if the event in question is one that is a suffeciently major departure from the previously-established direction of the story that the Troupe would only accept a player proposing it if she had a Storypath card to play, then the SG "owes" the players a card in return for the sudden twist. Similarly, if there is a Mastermind in the story, the SG must put a card into the Title any time a Mastermind Trait is invoked. Mostly, this judgement call is left up to the SG, since giving the players sufficient information to vette the decision would be detrimental to the game, but some Troupes may find it better to rely on a sort of majority-rules to decide when the SG must provide a card.
Unlike a character, a Title has a limited number of "slots" for Storypath Cards. If all of those slots are full, the SG may not employ the sorts of plot twists that would call for the play of a Storypath card until the players use one of the cards. Normally a Title has five slots, but for very large groups (more than 5 players) you may want to reduce this to four, or even three. Fewer slots than this tends to undermine the usefulness of the Title cards, because there aren't enough choices present for applicablitiy to be likely. With large groups, however, there is a counter-incentive, making it desirable to have as many or more card slots in the Title. Effectively, the more card slots the Title has, the more dire the situation the SG can put the characters into, and thus the more exciting the story and the more dramatic their comeback (in part because they have more extra cards to facillitate a comeback). And with a larger group of Omegas, it makes sense that they can recover from lower low point, and still triumph, because they have more abilities to draw upon. This points up another reason the Troupe may want to limit the number of Storypath slots in the Title: it limits the ability of the Storyguide to really get the characters into trouble (though not the players' ability to get themselves into trouble). If you prefer a more straight-forward plot to your Issues, you may want to limit the slots, even for a small group.
26 Crossing Over: the act of an W, especially a Main character, appearing in a Title that they are not normally a part of.
Copyright © Anno Domini 2001 by woodelf & Epidiah Ravachol.
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the October Open Game License, Version 1.0 or any later version published by the RPG Library; with the Invariant Sections being "Appendix IV: Designers' Notes" and "Colophon", with the Front-Cover Texts being "Four Colors al Fresco: A Roleplaying Game of Pulp-Style Superheroes in an Alternate Renaissance", and with no Back-Cover Texts.
A copy of the license is included in the section entitled "Appendix V: October Open Game License".
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