Easy Ways To Heighten Game

I’ve said it before and you can't stop me saying it again, talking about “Game of the Scene” can get very heady very quickly - throw in “heightening” and we can get even more bogged down. So here's an attempt to come up with some easy approaches for it.

When we say the word “heighten” people can think it's a synonym for “bigger”, louder, wilder, more extreme. And, whilst this isn't wrong, it's not necessarily that each subsequent Game move needs to get bigger in order to be effective. Heightening (like Game) is a bit of a moving target. What we sort of mean is "Do the comedy again, but this time, make it more".

I've come up with three simple levers you can pull to help improve your heightening: Specifics, Emotion, and Stakes.

• Specifics: Heighten the details of the Game to make it more surprising
• Emotion: Heighten how much your character cares about the Game
• Stakes: Heighten how much the world cares about the Game

What's great about these is that they are not exclusive. They can work in combo with each other. If you're a natural at heightening the specifics, but find yourself in a scene where you feel like your Game moves are treading water, it might be you need to crank up the emotion, or the stakes too!

So how would one heighten these three elements? Below is the completely final list of how to do that. As always, it is not possible to think of any other options or examples than this, they're done.

1. Heightening the Specifics

This is usually the first thing people think of: changing the details of the pattern to make it more surprising.

Let’s say the game is: “Lawyer who wants to bring their cat in to help them with their upcoming court case.”

Heightening the specifics might look like:

• First move: “Can I bring my cat in to help?”
• Heighten: “Actually, could I also bring my dog? He’s very intuitive.”
• Heighten: “I’ve brought my horse … he’s great motivation.”
• Heighten: “I’ve assembled an entire field of cows to help us win this!"

Here, you’re keeping the core comedic pattern the same but pushing the details further. The UCB theatre ("Game of the Scene" originators) describe this approach as "If this is true what else is true." If the lawyer first wants to bring in a cat... then what else would they want to bring in after that? You could even stick on "cat" but heighten specifics by bringing in more and more complicated bits of cat paraphernalia (food bowls, toys, scratching posts etc.).

But, whilst that example means making the specific details bigger (often literally), with some games going smaller can be a heighten too.

Example: Overly cautious corner shop ID checks.

• First move: The cashier IDs someone for buying a non-alcoholic drink.
• Heighten: Then they ID someone for buying a car magazine.
• Heighten: Then they ID someone for buying chewing gum.

If you thought of heightening as only going “bigger”, you could end up IDing people for bigger purchases (a weapon, a car etc.) which would make more sense and therefore end up being less funny. So we've heightened the "silliness" by making the item being purchased smaller, therefore raising the absurdity.

2. Heightening the Emotion

Heightening the emotion can allow you to make the game funnier without the specifics of the pattern having to change at all.

A couple of quick distinctions:

• If the emotion IS the game, then it should definitely heighten through the scene. Started out a bit sad? By the end of the scene the character should be openly wailing.
• But, it's also possible to heighten how much the Game matters to a character too. The character can become more emotionally invested in the Game whilst the behaviour itself might stay the same.

The cat-lawyer example again:

• Calmly: “I’d really like to bring my cat in to help.”
• Slightly anxious: “I just… I feel lost without my cat.”
• Desperate: “Please, I need Mister Tiddles. I can’t think straight without him.”
• Sobbing on the floor: “He’s the only good thing in my life, I’m begging you!”

The specific ask (“let me bring my cat in”) does not change but how much the character cares about it is “ramping up”. If you ever feel like you're making fun Game choices but not getting much for them, it may be that your character just needs to care more.

3. Heightening the Stakes

If heightening the emotion is about making it matter more to the character playing the Game, then heightening the stakes is about how much it matters to the world of the scene. Here we're making it sillier / funnier / more ridiculous by how important the setting is into which the character is playing their Game.

A common trap is to think that “raising stakes” means “change to a more important setting”. With our lawyer example we might think we can heighten by taking the lawyer to a crime scene, or to the court room. This can work, but it's important to remember you can raise the stakes without having to leave the scene you're in, and you can make it matter more without having to change the characters.

Returning to the lawyer:

• Starting move: It’s a standard case with a slightly odd lawyer who wants their cat involved.
• Heightened stakes:
  • This is a murder case.
  • The accused is a renowned gangster that they've been trying to take down for years.
  • The lawyer is the only one who can take this on.

In all of these, you can stay in the same environment (lawyer's office) but the urgency increases, the consequences get more serious and the grounded world around the Game is more intense.

Who Heightens The Game?

Different roles can more naturally take responsibility for different types of heightening, but it's not the sole responsibility of one person or one role.

• The character playing game: will find it easier to heighten specifics, and their emotion / how much they care about the Game
• Supporting players: will find it easier to heighten the stakes / how much the world cares about this.

But, in reality, it's a shared responsibility. In the over cautious ID check example, it would be supporting players offering up more and more mundane items to buy that allows the cashier to continue IDing them. And the character playing Game can still endow urgency into the world by making it clear their court case is deadly serious.

Hopefully these three approaches give some clear ways to think about how you can heighten. The point isn't to be running calculations in your head whilst you perform, it's to help you notice that you have some simple options to hand to help you make the comedy go more. If you're trying one and feel like it needs something else, try dialling up one of the others.