A Fred Friendly Seminar is an artful combination of hypothetical stories and hard-hitting policy issues, woven together by a moderator who unfolds a fictional scenario for a carefully cast panel of participants. The moderator paints a "little picture" of a situation that includes dilemmas drawn from real-life conflicts and encourages panelists to put themselves in the shoes of the hypothetical characters and talk to one another "in character." Forced to put aside talking points and rhetorical speeches to play roles in the fictional story, the panelists experience and reveal the complexity of issues with greater depth, and drama, than a standard debate would ever expose.