Continuing a previous discussion...

In addition to putting us on the upside of an emotional rollercoaster by placing its heroes in the win space, sequences of premise exploration fall into two other categories: exposition and spectacle.

Scenes in which the characters tool around in the setting without apparent plot advancement may seem aimless and consequence-free. At least, that’s what the storyteller hopes, because he’s really laying pipe for later developments and doesn’t want you to notice. So the veneer of the emotional up arrows conceals the provision of info you’ll need later. If a prolonged sequence shows the hamster heroes zipping around in their tube city, you can bet that the climax will again feature the tube city, and that a detail slipped in during the set-up sequence proves pivotal to its resolution. This may be pitched to the studio guys as a trailer moment, but (assuming a well-constructed story that wasn’t twisted into a pretzel of unrelated elements during the development process) serves a vital purpose.

In the turning points notation, a scene of pure exposition would be marked as an observational scene, with our handy-dandy binoculars symbol.

Adroit writers avoid pure exposition by working it into a scene that accomplishes something else, either dramatic or procedural. In the investigative genres, the heroes gain access to exposition as the reward for their victories.

One of the advantages of the RPG form is its high tolerance for exposition. Exposition is deadly on screen or onstage—or, for that matter, in a video game. It’s easier on the printed page but still must be presented in carefully regulated doses. In a tabletop, exposition can be inherently interactive. The GM provides a few sentences of basic narration about a new person, place or thing. Then the players can jump in, asking the clarifying questions they need to fix the situation in their heads.

Moments of pure spectacle, in which we see the visual awesomeness of the world, are a third component of premise exploration. They’re tricky to successfully pull off in any narrative format. In films, you need to get dramatic beats in there awfully quickly, no matter how stunning the CGI. Otherwise you’re in “let’s drool over the Enterprise” mode, as seen in the interminable sequence from the theatrical cut of Star Trek: the Motion Picture.

Players may make your descriptions of a setting interactive by asking questions about it. If not, you need to cover it in a few sentences, and then give them low-consequences ways of interacting with the new place until they’ve established its relevance to the premise.

Ideally, these occur in scenes or conflicts that advance a story as well. For example, the eponymous scenario in the Mutant City Blues adventure anthology Hard Helix allows the players to encounter the conceits and major figures of the setting in the course of cracking a case.