Pan Left

This game can be slow to explain and set up, so keep it efficient. It’s easier to just start playing the game than to explain it first.

Three players form a triangle, with two players in the current scene, and the third player waiting at the back. A fourth player can be a host.

Get a brief suggestion that will form the basis of a scene – a relationship. Perhaps it’s mother-daughter.

The host calls “Pan left!” and all players move positions to the audience’s left (from above, counterclockwise) – the player on the right steps to the back, and the player on the back takes up a position on the left. With a different combination at the front, the host now gets a suggestion for a second scene. Call “Pan left!” again and get a suggestion for the third combination, then begin that scene.

If the host calls “Pan left” the onstage triangle of players rotates counterclockwise, and if it’s “Pan right,” the triangle rotates clockwise.

The left-right distinction is confusing, but that’s also one one of the appealing parts of this convoluted game. Players often end up bumping, as they go in the wrong direction.

The three scenes are usually unrelated to each other. When we cut away from one scene, and come back to it later, don’t try to pick up from where you left off, but assume there has been a passage of time. If an earlier segment was about a nervous bride admitting to her best friend that she doesn’t want to marry her fiancé, the next segment might have her walking down the aisle, and perhaps the next has her being asked if she “takes this man”.

Segments are usually short – under thirty seconds, and three or four segments for each scene – an introductory scene, a piece of the middle of the story, and an ending. If segments go longer than that, or if there are too many segments, this game may try the patience of an audience.

When you return to a scene, not just jumping to a later point in time, but to a “good bit” with a strong emotional choice. If two people were arguing in the first segment, perhaps they are in the middle of a fistfight when we return to them.

The version with three players is also called Tri-Pan. The more cumbersome four-player version is also called Diamond.