Disruption, Reversal, Conclusion
Here’s an invaluable little tool that comes from John Rogers by way of Justin Alexander. These are my TLDR notes below, but the original article 3-Point Plotting and Justin’s review at Alexandrian are worth spending time reading and reflecting on.
Here’s the TLDR, with a little bent toward Blades in the Dark because that’s what I’m GMing at the moment:
Plot Is Engine, Story Is Playground
The “plot” is the sequence of events and problems (what actually happens); the “story” is the emotional experience, themes, and character changes.
The GM presents charged situations and provocative problems that offer opportunities for the players to make meaningful choices that drive the fiction forward in casual chain engine (the plot). This creates the emotional playground of as players experience tension, triumph, regret, surprise (the story).
Don’t prep plots as the saying goes; instead establish charged, immediate situations that provoke actions. Plot (and hopefully story) emerge from play.
Situations Always Start with Disruption
Every session, score, or scene needs an inciting problem—something that disrupts the status quo.
In Blades terms: the Disruption is the job offer, the rival’s move, the ghost breaking free, the Bluecoats on the crew’s tail. Disruption is charged and hazardous. It must demand a response.
Use the proximity of threat to modulate tone and tension. Immediate threats create danger; looming threats create dread; ticking clocks add urgency.
The “guy in the room with a knife” metaphor: Make sure there’s always something urgent, dangerous, or unexpected that the PCs can’t ignore.
Reversal in the Middle
Flat plots chain together events (“and then…”). Better plots shift and escalate (“but…”, “therefore…”).
- The Bluecoats chase you and then you hide in an alley and then you get away.
- The Bluecoats chase you, but a Spirit Warden blocks your escape route, therefore you’re forced into the haunted catacombs beneath the city.
Always look for ways to use “but…” and “therefore…” to upend expectations, introduce twists, and push the fiction forward. It keeps the story active and surprising, and gives the players choices that really matter. Lean into complications and failures to establish the “but…”, so players can provide a “therefore…”
The Reversal is the point where the job or situation changes dramatically. The rescue becomes an escape, the heist turns out to be a setup, a supposed ally betrays the crew, or the stakes get personal.
Aim to include at least one true reversal every session—something that turns expectations upside down and tests the players’ emotional investment.
Conclusion is a New Status Quo
Reversals are not just plot twists, but emotional pivots: they force tough choices, betrayals, sacrifices, or sudden alliances. They have lasting consequences in a campaign.
Every session or story arc needs to end with a new equilibrium—a changed world, new alliances or grudges, promises and revenge, altered relationships. In campaign play, the “conclusion” isn’t restoring everything to how it was, but setting a new normal that’s ready for the next disruption.
Even in episodic play, show how the events have shifted attitudes, revealed secrets, or changed character dynamics.
Each new equilibrium set up the next disruption.
At this point, the (plot) engine drives itself.
The House of Nerdery and Curios 