Let's Get Rid Of The Pattern Game

It Gives Us Nothing

This is the first of my “deep dive” posts for paid subscribers. It’s about the pattern game opening and how I think we should get rid of it. More than a deep dive, it’s a very niche topic. This is true blue alienating improv nerd talk. Please let me know your thoughts!

I’m also doing a free one today about “vertical versus horizontal heightening.” Usually I won’t do two in one but I just enacted the “paid” tier and thus it felt, I don’t know, polite? To do both.

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The pattern game is an improv opening. As it was taught to me, it is essentially a word association game. You get a suggestion, and then the group does word association to get away from the suggestion and then return to it. That’s a “loop” or a “leaf.” You do this three times, thus creating a “cloverleaf” structure. That’s the pattern game.

Very simple example of a loop off the suggestion “pencil.” - “pencil, school, student loans, capitalism, protests, not paying taxes, forms, pencil.”

From this, you get ideas for scenes.

It was described to me in reverent terms, and for a long time I accepted that reverence. I enjoyed performing and teaching this difficult ritual that was part of the improv culture. This was the mother of all improv openings, I was told. It contained within it everything that a good opening should have: group mind, rule of threes, expanding the suggestion into other ideas.

But then, a few years ago, it dawned on me. The pattern game, in this reporter’s opinion, has nothing to do with doing good improv scenes.

It is bad to do, bad to watch, and does not train you in anything valuable. It’s useful only for writers who want to request very specific and heightened scenes from their teams.

We should radically alter it or, better yet, just get rid of it.

Difficult In Useless Ways

The pattern game, even when done loosely, requires that you process words unnaturally quickly, devoid of context. You’re like a dictionary robot, spouting terms like “capitalism” or “wheelbarrow” or “tattoo artist” while most of the group is left behind.

When do we communicate to each other this way while doing actual scenes? Never. Getting good at the pattern game is only good for doing more pattern games.

Another challenge of the pattern game is remembering stuff. Since you skate by so many ideas so quickly, it’s very hard to remember any. With practice, you can do it. But it takes time. And when do we have to rememenbr so many ideas while doing actual scenes? Never.

If you master the pattern game, congrats: you’ve learned to remember grocery lists better. But it will not help you perform scenes like a human being.

Not Fun To Watch

The pattern game has got to be one of the most unpleasant things to watch in an improv show. Even when done well, by the most charismatic and brilliant teams with years of experience, it is… just okay. It’s funny only in the most dry way, in that a group of people have chosen to sound completely insane.

“Fixes”

The “fixes” for the pattern game are usually things that basically… tell you to not do a pattern game.

Here’s common “fixes” to make the pattern game better.

Do the pattern game with more emotion and performance. We understand more if we say things with feeling. Sure, but this looks even MORE insane. Everyone trying to lay a lot of feeling as they say things like “snow days” and “reality television.” It looks like an AI program doing absurdist poetry.

Talk in longer phrases, framing your ideas more clearly. This encourages the players to do things like label the comedy. So instead of saying “capitalism, protests, not paying taxes” someone might try to underline the comedy idea very clearly like saying “refusing to pay taxes as a form of protest” and then someone else goes “telling yourself your bad habits are a form of protest” and then “not paying your share of dinner check because of the president.”

First of all, this advice is basically saying: instead of doing a pattern game, just talk like a regular person. Good advice, the fact that people do this is evidence that pattern game is something we want to get away from.

But the practice of pitching comedic ideas to each other? This I liked. It was good comedy training, I thought.

Trouble is, I’ve recently realized, is that pitching ideas heightens all the ideas to an unnatural place. You are left with ideas that are way too big. It’s way too hard to play these scenes like real people. You lose track of the original emotional inspiration.

The only people who like it are writers who want to boss around the team into doing their very complicated ideas that no one relates to!

Sure you can get good at this with lots of practice. Except: IT’S NOT WORTH IT.

“It’s Not Taught Correctly”

EDITED AFTER INITIAL PUBLICATION TO ADD: If you’re reading this and thinking “it’s just not taught right, here’s how to teach it” —

THAT IS WHAT EVERYONE THINKS!

That is why every teacher teaches the pattern game differently. Even with a very proscribed curriculum, like at UCB, teachers put their own VERY INDIVIDUAL spin on the pattern game, which makes it harder for students.

How about we use an opening that doesn’t need a brilliant teacher to help trick your brain into being able to do it?

Use It For Training

As with The Harold, I can see a lot of good for the pattern game in improv classes — as an exercise. Years ago I outlined a very complicated exercise I called the “stations pattern game” in which you basically practice pitching comedy premises to each other.

It’s hard, but is good for people who aren’t used to thinking of comedic premises for scenes.

As an exercise.

But in a show? The pattern game just ruins everything.

Maybe once you’ve MASTERED doing scenes off of a suggestion, and you are INSTINCTIVELY grounding each other’s weird choices and heightening cleverly — maybe THEN you can try the pattern game as a way of turbo charging your ideas before you start.

But I bet by that time, you won’t miss it.

Maybe I’m Wrong. Convince Me.

I took a big crap on the Harold here a few months ago for being too long. I had similar complaints about it: that no one likes to do it, no one likes to watch it.

This led to some very fun experimentation where I did Harolds and taught Harolds with fresh eyes. I realized that what I didn’t like was relying EXCLUSIVELY on premise initiations. Getting rid of the opening “fixed” the Harold for me. First beats have more natural beginnings. Second beats let you initiate with big full premises.

Maybe there’s a way to “fix” the pattern game. Keep it very simple, short and shallow. Do not try to write full premises in this insane method of communication.

I do like the idea of a “clover leaf” as a way of organizing a show. Hit something three times, returning to the suggestion. It feels good. But there’s gotta be a better way than the pattern game to teach this concept.

Maybe it’s just when people try to use the pattern game as an on-stage writers room that I don’t like. Once again, it might be premise initiations taking too much oxygen.

Let me know what you think!

Further Reading / Listening

• The essay I wrote years ago about doing a “stations” pattern game. It’s part of my old Tumblr blog, also called Improv Nonsense.

• Pattern Game Summit: An old episode of the UCB podcast Long-Form Conversations in which 4 pattern game zealots discuss their thoughts on how to do pattern games well

• Don Fanelli interview: An even older episode of that same UCB podcast, in which Don Fanelli discusses lots of stuff, including the pattern game. His pattern game discussion starts at about 1 hour, 6 minutes. (hat tip Andrew Bond for finding this).

• Also on my old improv nonsense blog, I proposed a “themes” pattern game which was looser and less focused on developing ideas.