Some stories are focused, tight, straight ahead, direct, driving. They’re Neuromancer, Alien, Mad Max (any of ‘em), The Road. Characters are penned in, under pressure, and only have one shot left. They are focused narratives without diversions, multiple interacting story-lines, or many options for the characters. Then there are stories that are broad, sprawling, expansive, interconnected. They’re Game of Thrones, The Expanse, Stranger Things, The Wheel of Time.

I’ve noticed something about this difference, but don’t really understand it. What I see is some quantity of something in these stories that feels focused when limited but broad applied gluttonously. I don’t have a technical definition of what this something is, but I do see that certain things push it one way or another.

It might be that breadth is the amount of stuff we need to remember, the number of things that matter. Breadth is a burden, responsibility, and challenge but by meeting that challenge and satisfying that responsibility, broadness in stories feels great.

Focus is quick, easy, punchy. Focus feels good without much help, especially when it’s intense, but focus can get boring and repetitive.

A broad story has room for focused parts inside it. Sub-plots whose characters are penned in, under pressure, have only one shot left, but whose actions and circumstances depend on, are constrained by, effect, and are interconnected with other characters and plots. Octavia E. Butler is great at this. She deftly integrates the breadth and the focus I’m talking about. She proves they are not mutually exclusive. Read Wild Seed, Dawn, or Fledgling.

Different games give different opportunities for breadth and focus. PSI*RUN is focused. Characters have amnesia and only know that they’ve escaped and are being chased. Published settings and deep GM prep give breadth through details to remember, details that matter. Apocalypse World and Blades in the Dark, like most games, have the flexibility for either and both. One shots tend to be more focused due to time, though A Quiet Year is quite broad and Microscope is extremely broad. How does the design of these games affect breadth and focus? How can we affect breadth and focus in whatever game we play?

Characters start with amnesia in PSI*RUN and are on the run under close pursuit. They have almost no options and almost no memories. Create focus by limiting characters knowledge and putting them in an immediate emergency situation.

The Apocalypse World MC move, “Capture someone,” narrows focus by removing a character and all related opportunities for a while. It either becomes an emergency that puts all other possible paths on hold, focusing until that’s resolved, or, if the PCs don’t care to free them, it at least takes whoever was captured out of play.

So many other of the MC moves, principles, etc. can also cause focus. “Put them in a spot” and “Take away their stuff” takes away options. When you “look through crosshairs” and kill NPCs, you’re removing threats.

The Blades in the Dark game structure of free play → score → downtime focuses the game before it even starts. When we decide to play Blades, we’re deciding to play a narrow story.

The Blades in the Dark engagement roll is especially focusing. Planning for and thinking through all eventualities is particularity broadening as more and more details about the world must be established and considered to be planed around. The engagement roll drops all that breadth and detail by abstracting it and simply assuming the characters make a competent plan. Play focuses on the heist and only sees the details that actually matter.

Each detail established by world building adds a little bit of breadth, though only details that matter broaden it. Often details are texture to add to a beat or scene but we’ve all seen a texture detail take on importance long past expectations. The quirky shop keeper that everyone loves so much they become a recurring character.

Introducing characters has a big effect on breadth. Every connection with another character they make, every disagreement, plan, motivation they have is an opportunity to broaden the story. The PC-NPC-PC triangles from Apocalypse World is a great way to direct this breadth back into the PCs world and make the story more about them. This is where the NPC wants one thing from one PC and another thing from another PC. It says “… make your NPCs even more human—just by [making them] involve the players’ characters individually, not as a group. Show different sides of their personalities to the players’ different characters.” Each meaningful character detail, who wants what from whom, who loves/hates/fears/embarrasses whom, broadens the story you’re telling. The brilliance of PC-NPC-PC triangles is that it holds the breadth together. It makes the PCs the center of a broad story.

Broaden by adding details, characters, needs, wants, open questions, stakes, complications, opportunities, mysteries. Broaden by adding things! Keep a broad story interesting and meaningful by relating everything added to something existing, especially the PCs and the things the PCs care about.

Try this all out in your games. Keep an eye out for opportunities to broaden and focus, whatever role you’re playing. I’ve found that this lens can really help with pacing. Too broad too fast can feel like loose pacing. Too focused for too long can get boring and feel like a railroad. My favorite games and stories are when there is both breadth and focus working together.

If you’re interested in playing with focus try my cyberpunk duet Cyphernoided2600. It’s about “Grinding yourself to death against the impossibly powerful to take as much of them as you can down with you.” One character with nothing left but a drive to make a dent at all costs.

If you want a game with a bit more breadth, take a look at Vesta Mandate. Connive, backstab and play the political game as you scheme to accomplish your Hidden Agenda. Play as a member of the executive Council, with a secret Agenda that will bring the Station to its knees or uplift it to a new era.

What are your favorite kinds of stories in games? What are your most reliable focusing and broadening techniques? Let us know on Bluesky @jessebmiller.bsky.social @storygameschicago.bsky.social

Keep an eye out, we’ll have some more stuff like this coming in the next few weeks!