Exercise: Cloverleaf Variations

Working with some groups lately, I've had a lot of fun with variations on the cloverleaf exercise. It's a really flexible game is easy to modify to target different skills.

At it's simplest the cloverleaf just a core scene (ideally a two-person, relationship-based one), then on the edit we start a "leaf" of scenes exploring a theme that was brought up. That one idea can then be heightened and explored before being exhausted and returning to the source scene. Repeat this a few times, and try to make the leaves come from different places.

The variations I've been trying:

• Support the Characters- Make each leaf kind of "slacker"-y. Tag out and work with a core scene character, expanding and exploring an aspect of that character. Try to avoid tag-runs, instead try small vignettes that give detail and focus to their personality. When you return to the core, the player will have a stronger, more nuanced understanding of their character. This is good for teams that might need to focus on non-"gamey" heightening and players that want to deepen their characters.  Allow the core scenes to breathe and be "boring".
• Support the World - Make each leaf an expansion of the world as it's being defined in the core scene. Work with the "If this is true, what else is true" maxim. The leaves should be distant from the source, no bringing the characters along. In fact, the further the away from the setting of the source you can get while still clearly being in the world the better. Return to source scene or let there be a time/space jump or character introduction. You can be freer here, because the focus is on world building and driving creative consistency. This can be good for groups that tend to use very linear or ploty moves, people that wimp out on sticking with choices, or groups that have trouble focusing on what game to play.
• Support to Idea - Make each leaf analogous to the source. This is can happen a lot of ways: same relationship, same "Oh shit" moment, starting with the same energy, following similar narrative points, etc. Then the scenes after that will echo the same aspect that was copied but with increasing intensity,  What has to happen is that the new scenes are, like in Support the World, removed from the core scene's specifics. In this variant allow for, or insist that, the worlds of the scenes to be completely different. When returning, allow for any new initiation, as long as it's clear you're back in the core scene's universe. It could even be a new set of characters in that world, go nuts.  This exercise is good for a lot of the same skills as Support the World, but I think is especially good for groups looking stretch their way of approaching later beats and reincorporation.

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