For a long time, I was struggling to understand what the "premises" are, how to come up with them, and how to turn them into "playable" games. I was searching for a clear explanation that would make sense to me, and a process that would reliably generate usable premises. I think I finally figured out an approach that works for me, and I want to share it with you in this post.

Prerequisites

To follow this post, you need to understand the terms like "Game of the Scene", "Base Reality", "Unusual Thing", "Justification". If you don't, check out my Game of the Scene Workshop first, or read "UCB Manual".

Organic vs premise-based scenes

Premise = Unusual Thing

In organic scenes, you start by establishing the base reality, and then the first unusual or absurd thing that stands out from the base reality becomes your "First Unusual Thing".

When brainstorming premise-based scenes, your goal is to come up with the unusual thing you can build the scene around. You come up with the Unusual Thing directly, without defining the full Base Reality first.

Scene components

Think of improv scene ideas as made up of 4 components:

• Character aspect (a personality trait, belief, emotion). Like: clumsy, incompetent, ambitious, sad, cool, "who acts like your drunk aunt", "who thinks government invented werewolves".
• Character. Usually defined by their occupation or who they are: construction worker, knight, vampire, baby, old lady, hillbilly.
• Location. Where the scene takes place.
• Action. Character's behavior, or activity the characters are doing in the scene.

In a non-funny scene idea ("Base Reality"), all these components make sense together, and add up to something normal, expected:

• Brilliant lawyer making a case in a courtroom.
• Primitive caveman hunting mammoths in the savannah.
• Evil vampire drinks the blood of an innocent maiden in his castle.

Coming up with premises

To come up with premises, the trick is to create combinations of these components that are as absurd as possible, that don't make sense together:

• Character aspect + character:

Posh caveman, clumsy vampire, superstitious lawyer, therapist who acts like your drunk aunt, spiritual but not religious monk, heart surgeon who'd much rather be a slam poet, millenial pirate, evil lunch lady.

• Character + location:

Caveman in a courtroom, aspiring motivational speaker in tech support call center, a ghost trying to haunt a Starbucks, HBO's gritty reboot of "Winnie the Pooh", fortune teller working at the IRS.

• Character + action:

Movie exec gives notes on ten commandments, food critic reviewing kindergarten lunchboxes, birthday magician trying to perform exorcism, old-timey prospector mining bitcoin, Zeus taking anger management classes, investment banker reading a bedtime story, two angels quietly trash-talking Jesus.

• Location + action:

Trying to seduce a judge at a court room, real estate agent tour of a hounted house, asking for a divorce on a roller coaster, a woman in hell asking to speak to the manager, pitching startup idea at a funeral, hospital run like a fast-food restaurant.

You can come up with this kind of ideas in two ways:

1. Subvert expectations. Take one component, and ask yourself "What do I expect? What would be wildly different from that? What other component would belong with it the least?"

• I expect lawyers to be competent and professional, but this lawyer relies on superstitions to make his case.
• I expect monks to be deeply spiritual, but this one is "spiritual but not religious" in a shallow way.
• I expect haunted houses to be abandoned and spooky, so a wildly inappropriate component that belongs here the least could be a real estate agent showcasing the house to the prospective buyers.
• I expect people at a funeral to be sad and solemn, so a behavior that is wildly inappropriate here could be pitching your startup idea.

1. Combine two random components that don't belong together. Take two unrelated components (for example, one random character and one random location), and put them together:

• Caveman + Courtroom = a caveman in a courtroom.
• Ghost + Starbucks = a ghost attempting to haunt a Starbucks.
• Pro Wrestler + Couples Therapy = two pro wrestlers at the couple's therapy.
• Therapist + Drunk Aunt = therapist that acts like a drunk aunt.

Turning premises into game ideas

To turn a premise into a game, you come up with the Justification for the absurdity.

Game = Unusual Thing + Justification

For example:

• Investment banker reading a bedtime story > because he's convinced that teaching cutthroat business principles early is the only way to prepare kids for the real world.
• Trying to seduce a judge at the court room > because you're trying to get a lighter sentence.
• Clumsy vampire > because he's a brand new recently-turned teenage intern.
• Heart surgeon who'd rather be a slam poet > his parents pushed him into medicine.
• Birthday magician performing exorcism > because they hired the wrong magician by mistakes.
• Food critic reviewing kindergarten lunchboxes > because their career took a dive recently.

Think of the premise (or the unusual thing) as the "symptom" of the game, the first instance of the absurdity that you see in the scene. The justification helps turn a premise into a playable game because it reveals the underlying pattern of behavior or thinking that can be heightened, a "framework" for the absurdity, creates a "rule" you can follow to come up with more examples of the game (heightening by asking "if this is true, then what else is true?"). It establishes a consistent character logic that will drive similar but escalating choices.

Playing the game

Depending on how we justify the premise, we can end up multiple different games.

For example:

• Base Reality: Dad talks to a guy who's picking up his daughter for prom.
• Unusual Thing: Dad offers weed to the guy.

Here are a few possible justifications, and the "game moves" (progressively heightening examples of the game) that would follow from each justification:

The dad offers weed because he wants his daughter's boyfriend to think he's cool:

• The dad shows off his skateboard tricks in the driveway.
• The dad shows off his old BBQ party photos.
• The dad insists on taking a selfie together.
• The dad awkwardly uses teenage slang.
• The dad challenges the boyfriend to a rap battle.
• The dad invites him to join his underground fight club.

The dad offers weed because he wants to test his daughter's boyfriend for good character:

• Offers him a flask of whiskey to "double-check" his integrity.
• Pretends to have a heart attack to test if he knows CPR.
• Offers him stolen watches to see if he'll report it.
• Stages a mugging to see if he'll protect his daughter.

The dad offers weed because he's nervous about his daughter going to prom and needs a smoke:

• Tells the guy a much too personal story about his failed prom
• Tries to teach the boyfriend defense techniques
• Tries to chaperone the prom himself "I’ll just hang in the back, no big deal. You won’t even notice me."

The dad offers weed because he doesn't want his daughter to have a subpar prom experience:

• Gives them a printed list of local makeout spots ranked by privacy
• Asks the guy to select a brand of condoms from the selection he prepared
• Slips the boyfriend a hotel key with a wink and says "Don’t worry, I booked you a suite—you’re welcome."
• Pulls out a detailed PowerPoint about optimal positions for backseat activities.

Thanks a lot to everyone who replied to this post to help me understand some of these ideas.

If you have any feedback on this post, if there's anything I'm still missing or misunderstanding - please let me know. If you have any advice on coming up with premises and turning them into playable games - please share! (send me an email to lumenwrites@gmail.com, or leave a comment here).

Also, if you liked this post, you'll probably like my collection of improv games, and you're welcome to join our Discord to improvise with us!