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Fifth Element Part 6
🕑 Added 2024-05-01 06:59:03 +0000 UTCOne thought that's been on my mind for a while is the tendency in Film Reroll's long lifespan of our movies to go longer. More episodes and longer episodes. Once upon a time The Wizard of Oz going four episodes was an epic, now we go 5 to 7 for most movies. On its own I don't think it's a bad thing. And I continue to be proud of the work I do, and that very much includes the longer ones. Rogue Two is brought up to me as a lot of people's favorites, and that's the longest one we've done. But while Rogue Two truly did require 8 episodes (some of them three hours long), I don't really want all our movies to be epics. And to a certain degree it's a momentary bias of the fact that a lot of our recent movies were adventure movies, which can go longer: Things like Fifth Element or Halloween 3 I expect to take a little longer to run. But nonetheless, I have been left with the feeling that I want to reign in the average episode count of the movies we run, and I have been taking some time considering how to really do that.
The problem has always been that I have no idea how long a movie will run. It truly is not in my control. I create the world and let the players play in it, and when it feels like we've arrived at an ending, I call it. That's not to say that I'm not part of the storytelling process, but I really try my hardest to not put my finger on the scale, to simply let the world react organically to the players' actions. Nonetheless, I have identified a number of ways in which I can help pull in the length of our stories, and I intend to start implementing them. And I will discuss them as I see how they play out.
But you tell me. How do you feel about seven parters? Which, Fifth element is.
Comments
Nick Teller
I think 3-5 is the sweet spot
David Jordan
I think shorter Rerolls makes a lot of sense. As so many have said, I’ve enjoyed essentially every reroll, but there have been a couple where it felt like the story had overstayed its welcome and there was a mild burnout, with everyone enjoying it but also sounding ready to get on to the next thing. This isn’t remotely unusual, I’ve played in traditional table top campaigns that the same thing happens. I think having shorter total lengths would help narrative flow, and also keep everything feeling fresher throughout the Reroll. It’s also way more approachable to new listeners - seeing 5 or 6 3 hour episodes is overwhelming, even as a longtime listener. I assume it’s an even harder commitment to jump in if you’re new.
