The cliffhanger is an old convention from the days of serial fiction; one episode ends with Our Hero dangling from a cliff (or other crisis), with no help in sight and another danger looming over him. The theory (quite a successful one) was that readers, listeners or film goers would return to see how the hero gets himself out of such a predicament. Dramatic editing allows you to integrate cliffhanger-style cut scenes into Adventure, along the lines of the old style serials.

Dramatic editing provides clear rules on how a player can influence the story to give his character a surprise break, as often occurs in tales of pulp derring-do. The cliffhanger functions in virtually the same manner; the distinction between the two lies in its function and placement within the story. Players use dramatic editing during the course of a story to save their characters from a troubling and unforeseen event or to make their actions in the scene all the more exciting. The Storyteller applies the cliffhanger intentionally at the end of a game session as a planned portion of the ongoing story. She intentionally leads events in the game to an exciting, large-scale final set piece, meant to leave the players with mouths agape in amazement and clamoring to find out what happens next?!

Still, the cliffhanger should not end every session. It should be infrequent enough to be an exciting surprise for the group. This is suggested for two reasons: Firstly, it‘s tough enough for the Storyteller to come up with an exciting session every week without forcing her to wrack her brains to create yet another inescapable death-trap to close out each one. Secondly, if the characters face certain death every single game session, the players will soon become jaded to the whole cliffhanger concept. It’s then reduced to a spot to spend points and roll dice rather than the pulse-pounding thrill ride it should be.

Like any other use of dramatic editing, the cliffhanger gives a fair amount of control over to the players. The Storyteller should feel free to modify the rules to suit her tastes (or simply reject the rules altogether).