Cowboy Bebop and the Art of Controlling a Session

I like anime. Bebop is one of the best. And when rewatching it last month, I realized that I had been using tools from it. So here's a post about those tools.

1. Bounty of the Week

• The key to controlling a session is to know your enemy
• In Bebop, every episode (session) revolves around a bounty that the gang is chasing. 
• Find your bounty. It can be a reoccurring villain or a Monster of the Week scenario. 
• This is tied into your Theme. In the war example from the Pokemon post, the enemy is the opposing force.

2. Structure

• To goal of knowing your enemy is to have a structure. 
• Bebop's structure is simple: 1. there's a new bounty, 2. the gang goes after the bounty, 3. the gang doesn't get rich.
• This is most feasible to plot in an episodic game, where every session can have an individual story
• But **Bebop's structure comes from the Villains**. It comes from the Theme that there will always be another bounty to catch, they will always mess up, and they will always escalate. 

3. Villains

• So to create your Structure, even in a serial campaign, you must only know the steps your enemy will take to succeed their goal
• Continuing the war example: the enemy will always try to win the war. Doing this can be done in many ways, to create some variance, but we can make a list of three steps that all of the opposing forces see the world through: There's a new target, we send troops to deal with the target, we win the war. 
• Ever need to know what the enemy force is trying to do? Wherever the PCs are is a new target. The opposing forces will send troops to handle this new target, either by destroying it, capturing it, planting a spy, etc. In the hopes that they'll win the war.

4. Pacing

• Bebop tells a fulfilling and impactful episode in 22 minutes. You have 3 hours (or more) to be a part of something that is fun. Doesn't even need to be impactful. Just fun for the table.
• If you watch Bebop, you'll see that, like in D&D, the gang meanders, wanders, gets distracted A LOT. They focus on the wrong things, follow the wrong leads, wind up at "dead ends" of the Bounty Hunt. 
• The Villains always stay on track though. And this creates pace.
• If your session feels like its lagging if it feels like your party is losing their place, if there is a big lull and nothing is happening and you feel the game slipping away...your villain is trying to accomplish their goal.
• YOU can act in the face of party inaction. You, in the guise of the world, can act.

4b. Types of Action

• The villain does something devastating nearby
• The villain attacks the party
• The villain takes hostages
• The villain escalates the situation
• The villain is spotted making an escape
• The villain slips up and reveals their position

5. Communication

• Cowboy Bebop communicates with its cast. The world, I mean, communicates with the gang to push the show along. Most episodes are started with a TV program giving the gang their new bounty. And when this doesn't happen, either they stumble onto a bounty wherever they happen to be, or the character's backstories come back to haunt them.
• As a DM, I find a lot of joy in worldbuilding that communicates with the players
• Bounty boards are a big example of this in a standard fantasy world. Open a session with the bounty board and you're off to the races
• But you have the freedom to communicate in other ways. Quest giving NPCs that have a personality and depth can be a great way to open a session, which creates pacing but also allows for RP.

5b. Backstories

• Spike has a personal villain that haunts him. And because of this past life, he has a lot of contacts. I'd say 1/4th of episodes have something to do with Spike's past, or someone from the Gang's past. 
•  Matthew Mercer, DM for Critical Role, almost exclusively communicates to the party through their backstories. Their gods, patrons, past friends, enemies, etc. 
• When your PCs hand you a backstory, it is a gift of resources that all allow you to communicate directly to your party through the game

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