diff --git a/docs/scenarios/CLEAN_GROUND.md b/docs/scenarios/CLEAN_GROUND.md index ff9983f..7d552e2 100644 --- a/docs/scenarios/CLEAN_GROUND.md +++ b/docs/scenarios/CLEAN_GROUND.md @@ -9,34 +9,30 @@ | | | |---|---| -| **Version** | **v0.12**, 13 September 2026 | +| **Version** | **v0.13**, 13 September 2026 | | **Can it be run?** | **Yes, from this document alone.** A GM with this file and the compendium can run it end to end. | | **Is it convention-ready?** | **Nearly.** The print pack is built (`CLEAN_GROUND_HANDOUTS.html`, held by `check-handouts`). What is missing is a run with human beings, and a slot. | | **Playtesting** | Three desk passes, all fixes applied: `CLEAN_GROUND_PLAYTEST_1.md` (GM chair, seed 4271), `_2.md` (Act Four stress, seed 9314), `_3.md` (player chair, contrarian, seed 5580). Twenty-three fixes plus one post-pass. | | **What it is** | A **convention one-shot**, decided 13 September 2026. It ends in the slot; there is no second session and the text must not promise one. | | **Where it runs** | **Contingency 2027 — Sunday 31 January 2027, afternoon** (slot 9), Searles Leisure Resort, Hunstanton. | -| **Runtime** | 4h00 including a break. Desk pass 1 ran 4:25; the **Pacing Note** carries ~25 minutes of pre-written cuts. Take them as the default. **⚠ That is 20 minutes over the house budget** — see below. | +| **Runtime** | **3h30 of play plus a 10-minute break — 3h40 wall clock**, which is the house budget. Act Two was cut from 65 minutes to 45 in v0.13 to get there. The **Pacing Note** carries a further 65 minutes of cuts; take them as the default. | | **Players** | 4–6 from the duty roster. The cast is declared in the Casting section and the build enforces it. | -### ⚠ It runs 20 minutes long against the house budget +### It fits the house budget, as of v0.13 -The house standard is **3h30 of play** inside the four-hour slot plus a ten-minute -break — about **3h40 wall clock**, against roughly 3h15 of actual content. This -document budgets **4h00**, which is the whole slot with nothing either side. +**3h30 of play plus a ten-minute break — 3h40 wall clock.** For most of this document's +life it budgeted 4h00, which is the whole slot with nothing either side, and did not say +that was over. It was: the house standard is 3h30 of play against roughly 3h15 of content. -**Taking every pre-written cut in the Pacing Note lands it at 4:00, not 3:40.** So the -cuts are not optional slack, they are the baseline, and there is still no margin for a -table that talks. Desk pass 1 ran 4:25 uncut. +**Act Two carried the entire overrun** at 65 minutes and is now 45. The twenty came out +of structure, not content — the crossing is capped at five minutes, THE OFFER runs inside +the column scene instead of beside it, and the line's rest gives that scene a clock that +ends it on the GM's schedule. Nothing was deleted. -Two honest ways out, and it has not been decided which: - -- **Find another 20 minutes.** Act Two is 65 minutes and is the likeliest source; the - Pacing Note already knows where its own fat is. -- **Declare it a deliberate exception** and run it in a slot with nothing after it — - which, at Contingency 2027, it has: Sunday afternoon, with only a reserve behind it. - -Until that is settled, **a GM running this to time should assume they will overrun** -and should take the cuts from the start rather than deciding at the break. +**The Pacing Note now carries 65 minutes of further cuts against a 55-minute problem**, so +for the first time there is about ten minutes of real slack. Desk pass 1 ran 4:25 uncut; +that figure predates this restructure and a fourth desk pass has not been run against the +new timings. **The first human run is also the first test of this clock.** ### The three things that are not obvious @@ -116,7 +112,7 @@ premise (a walk north that never arrives) and the predator's method (imitation). country north of Hadrian's Wall, and its 1962 duplicate. - **Tone:** procedural, then cold, then unbearable. A filing contingency with forty-one people inside it. -- **Runtime:** 4h00 including a 10 minute break. +- **Runtime:** 3h30 of play plus a 10-minute break — 3h40 wall clock, inside a four-hour slot. - **The crossing:** the stump of a boundary oak on the Sike Head march. Open since the felling, widest at dusk, and it will not close on its own. @@ -145,30 +141,51 @@ premise (a walk north that never arrives) and the predator's method (imitation). ## Session Timing +**3h30 of play plus a ten-minute break — 3h40 wall clock**, which is the house budget. +An earlier version of this table ran 3h50 and called it 4h00; Act Two carried the whole +overrun and has been cut to fit. + | | Act | Clock | What it is for | |---|---|---|---| | 0:00 | **One — Registry and the Sike Head** | 0:45 | Briefing, the felled tree, the first body | -| 0:45 | **Two — Over** | 1:05 | The crossing, the burnt valley, the column | -| 1:50 | *break* | 0:10 | | -| 2:00 | **Three — There is no north** | 0:50 | The loop, the 1962 file, what the walkers are | -| 2:50 | **Four — One of us** | 0:45 | The swap, and the test that does not work | -| 3:35 | **Close — Cancellation** | 0:25 | The decision, in front of somebody who will be cancelled | +| 0:45 | **Two — Over** | 0:45 | The crossing, the burnt valley, the column | +| 1:30 | *break* | 0:10 | | +| 1:40 | **Three — There is no north** | 0:50 | The loop, the 1962 file, what the walkers are | +| 2:30 | **Four — One of us** | 0:45 | The swap, and the test that does not work | +| 3:15 | **Close — Cancellation** | 0:25 | The decision, in front of somebody who will be cancelled | -**Hard rule:** at 2:50 on the clock, somebody at the table is not who they were. +**Hard rule:** at 2:30 on the clock, somebody at the table is not who they were. ### Pacing Note — the cuts, written in advance -Desk pass 1 ran 4:25 against this table, with three lucky rolls. **Take these cuts as the -default, not the emergency.** +Desk pass 1 ran **4:25** against an earlier table that budgeted 3h50 of play. The house +budget is **3h30 plus a ten-minute break**. That is a 55-minute problem, and it is now +solved in two halves rather than left to the GM at the table. + +**Half one — twenty minutes are already gone from the printed timings.** Act Two was 65 +minutes and is now 45. Nothing was deleted: the crossing is capped at five, THE OFFER runs +inside the column scene rather than beside it, and the line's rest gives that scene an +in-fiction clock. **You do not have to do anything to take this cut — it is the act as +written.** See Act Two's budget table. + +**Half two — these, and take them as the default, not the emergency.** | Cut | Saves | Costs | |---|---|---| | **Registry briefing capped at 10 minutes** — when the tenth minute arrives, Registry has another appointment | ~5 | Nothing. Every answer is in Act One anyway | | **Act Three: drop the walk to the northern seam** | ~15 | Nothing. The lorry and the almanac already prove the loop | -| **Act Two: the column's hospitality, once rather than twice** | ~5 | A little warmth. Take this one last | +| **Act Two: the column's hospitality, once rather than twice** | ~5 | A little warmth. Take this one last, and only if the line's rest has already overrun | + +**Running total: 65 minutes of cuts available against a 55-minute problem**, so there is +ten minutes of genuine slack for a table that talks — which is the first time this +scenario has had any. **Do not cut:** telling Ivy, the almanac pair, or the Close. They are the scenario. +**If you are still over at the break**, the thing to shorten is Act Three's depot search, +not Act Four. Act Four is already the shortest act with the most to do, and the Close is +the only part of the night the table will remember in a year. + --- ## Plot Summary (GM truth) @@ -521,7 +538,35 @@ side of the county. Two routes, both of which reach a party anywhere: --- -## Act Two — Over *(~65 min)* +## Act Two — Over *(~45 min)* + +> **This act was 65 minutes and carried the scenario's entire overrun.** It is now 45, and +> the twenty came out of structure rather than content: nothing below was deleted. The +> crossing is capped, THE OFFER runs *inside* another scene instead of beside it, and the +> column scene has an in-fiction clock that ends it on your schedule. **Run the budget +> below and the act lands.** Ignore it and this is the act that eats the Close. + +| Beat | Minutes | Ends when | +|---|---|---| +| **The crossing** | **5** | A player breaks the silence. If nobody does by minute five, a Geiger tick does it for them | +| **The column arrives** | **5** | Ivy has walked forward and somebody has spoken to her | +| **The line rests, and they talk** | **25** | The rest ends — see the clock below. THE OFFER happens inside this | +| **The line moves on** | **10** | H03a is handed over and the agents decide whether to follow | + +**THE LINE'S REST IS THE ACT'S CLOCK, and it is the cut that does the work.** This column +walks every day of its life and it stops to rest, not to meet people. **Ivy will talk for +as long as the line is sitting down, and the line sits for twenty-five minutes.** Then the +old ones stand up, because they always do, and the conversation is over whether or not the +agents got what they wanted. + +- **Say it at the start of the scene, once:** the line has sat down in the heather, and + they do that for a while and then they walk. Players who know a scene has a clock use it; + players who do not will still be carried by it. +- **Ivy does not stay behind to finish a conversation.** She has never once let the line + walk without her and she is not going to start tonight. Anything unasked is unasked. +- **This is not a punishment and must not read as one.** It is the loop showing itself for + the first time: these people are on rails and the agents have just watched it happen + without being told. **Beats** - **The crossing** — *read aloud or paraphrase:* @@ -534,13 +579,18 @@ side of the county. Two routes, both of which reach a party anywhere: - **Do not say "nuclear", "1962", or "ash".** The Geiger says the first, Bhattacharya says the second, and *ash* is a word a player should be the one to use. - If anyone asks what the grey is, the honest answer is that it is on their hands now. - - Nobody rolls anything here. Let the silence sit until a player breaks it. + - Nobody rolls anything here. Let the silence sit until a player breaks it — **but this + is five minutes, not ten.** If the table is still quiet at minute five, the Geiger + finds its own voice and that is your cue to move. A silence that has stopped being + tense is just a pause, and this act cannot afford one. - **Coherence starts draining** — one per hour, and the record offers each agent a small, correct-feeling detail about why they belong here. `[CUS: Insight — that memory is new]` *Missed:* nothing yet, and quietly better — the record should be winning early without being noticed. -- **THE OFFER — the anchor's beat, and it is not optional.** Somewhere in this act, take - Ashcroft's player aside for one minute. The record offers him the cleanest version of the +- **THE OFFER — the anchor's beat, and it is not optional.** **Run it DURING the line's + rest, while the other players are talking to Ivy** — that is where the twenty minutes + came from, and it costs nothing because the table is occupied. Take Ashcroft's player + aside for one minute. The record offers him the cleanest version of the lie: that he has always been the anchor for *this* valley, that the three years his body is older than his birthday were spent here, and that he may put the weight down now. **Accepting costs nothing in the moment, 2 Coherence at the Close, and one more thing he