I have an interesting Actual Play moment I've been meaning to share for like three months. It concerns the closing episode for out highly successful Dirtside (http://rpg.turnodanoite.com/dirtside) series (best thing I ever GMed/Produced in almost fifteen years of gaming), which I have previously mentioned in passing here (http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=15599.msg166799#msg166799).
So it's the season finale, and our protagonists are in orbit, trying to get the hell away from the colossal Senate Ship which is about to blow up in a big fiery ball and leave the galaxy in total anarchy... the Legionnaires are taking over the docking bays, and our heroine has to run like the wind to try to make through the crossfire and into the shuttle she had her friend/Connection/mechanic prepare for take off. The other protagonists abandoned the ship with plenty of time to spare, but our heroine had to go back once she found out about the big fiery ball thing to get her dad (the military high commander for the nearest planet, at the time at a Senate hearing), her girlfriend lover (a tough as nails Sergeant that used to give our lowly Private 1st Class heroine all nine kinds of hell... strangely enough, she was her Nemesis when the series started, but the player started taking a liking to her... a big liking!) and her boyfriend lover (a Private FC, like her, that turned out to be working as a spy for the Rebels and was scheduled for execution... she had found his Rebel origins right in the end of the pilot episode, but had been covering up for him because he was the only man in the platoon that treated her decently and she had fallen in love with him already).
So the Screen Presence for our heroine is just 1 for this episode. I know the end is getting nearer (just a few more scenes to go), but I can't let this damn series end without settling once and for all (until the next season, at least) who will our heroine choose to keep as her lover: the rebel traitor boyfriend she fell madly in love with in the first episodes, or the tough lesbian sergeant who got her through so much and turned out to be good a friend and lover. So far, she had managed to avoid a final decision (with the boyfriend having run away to hide from the law and all) but this is the series finale, so... someone's got to go, unless they can make a threesome work, which seems pretty unlikely.
So as our heroine is making a mad dash for the shuttle, trying to run through the crossfire safely with her father and her two lovers in tow, I say to my player: "Conflict time. Here's the stakes: we'll roll the dice three times, once for each one of the three persons you're trying to get aboard safely. If I win the roll, it means that person was shot up pretty badly, most likely dead; if you win, that person gets to the shuttle safely. I'll only roll the producer's automatic die for each roll, I won't add budget dice. As for you, you'll roll your Screen Presence (1) every time and divide the Trait and Fan Mail dice you're entitled to between the three persons however you see fit; the more dice you assign to a person, the more chances that person has of making it out of this. Let's find out how bad you want each of these people to survive. Think hard!"
I can't even begin to explain how cool I thought this was. Working exclusively through the system (well, a variation of it, anyway) I was pretty much asking the player outright how much she cared for each of these characters (each of one very dear to her), and to prioritize them according how much she wanted them to make through all this alive. As it had happened many time before (lot's of hard bangs in this series!) the player was grief stricken, and took some moments to get her priorities straight and divide her limited resources. The results were this:
Her Father got 1 die from her (the automatic Screen Presence die).
The Boyfriend/Fiancé got 2 dice (the automatic plus a trait die).
The Lesbian Girlfriend Lover got 4, count 'em, 4 dice (one automatic plus three trait/fan mail dice).
The Conundrum was finally solved... she was dumping her old sweetheart and getting together with her lesbian girlfriend. Not right now, in the middle of all this crazy events, but after things had settled down enough for some serious talking. Even if a TV audience wouldn't know which of these three persons was more dear to the character (at least not in this scene) we, the gaming group, could clearly tell how our friend felt just by comparing the three sets of dice she placed on the table. I can't tell you how proud I felt at that moment. I know this is not acceptable according to the PTA rules, but damn, it felt great, and I had a very good reason for twisting the rules.
This is the most important stuff, but no, the story doesn't end here. Now it's time to roll them bones! The Father has a 50% chance of dying right there, but he makes it out alive. Hurrah! The Boyfriend has better chances, and he too makes it. Now the easy part; four dice for the Girlfriend against the producer's one die and... the producer wins! My God, the look on my player's face was just priceless, I thought she was going to faint... If there was a photo of her at that moment I'd have it framed and labeled has the most intense moment a player ever experienced at my gaming table, and believe me, during this PTA series the poor girl suffered plenty of them. Incredible, just incredible!
Long story short, I had the girlfriend make it just barely breathing and to recover eventually and very painfully... the love triangle was such a huge goddamn bang waiting to happen that having one of the persons involved dying randomly seemed too merciful! :-D I wanted the player to have to suffer through explaining to her fiancé the things she was keeping hidden from him... small everyday stuff, like a lesbian love affair with her drill sergeant which she wants to marry...
Oh well, so here it is. Three months late, but I finally made it.
Ricardo
Dude.
DUDE.
You set up an awesome conflict, laid out the stakes for all to see, rolled the dice, and then... fudged the outcome?!
I can't believe it. The girlfriend is dead. Dead dead dead. If she was just going to scrape by with some injuries, why bother rolling at all? Sorry if this sounds harsh, but you broke the cardinal rule of conflict resolution in my opinion. The idea to split her dice was pretty cool, but what came afterwards looks like plain ol' GM Force to me.
Also: Was everyone else out of fan mail dice or something? Because man, is that ever a conflict that all the players would jump into in my games. Why did no one help her out?
Fudge the outcome? Well, I guess I did just that, eheh... the actual play post I put up on my Portuguese blog at the time says that was at stake for the three characters was "getting shot up and left behind" (though I don't know if that was exactly what I said during the game or not). What my player did (don't remember if she narrated the conflict and introduced this, or if I narrated and didn't take the narration all the way to a point where there was no going back) was having her heroine stop the shuttle doors from closing and run back halfway through the crossfire again to get her dying(?) friend, not caring for anything else.
I might have been a whimp, but like I said, I thought it too merciful for the player to have fate resolve the love triangle... I prefered to let her handle it in her own way and see her squirm. So I let her get away with it, but at a terrible price nevertheless: I killed the 4th character the player/character really cared about. The heroine enters the shuttle, the loading doors finally close and she's safe inside, her lover on her arms bleeding like a multi-punctured blood bag but at least still alive (barely), and she looks around to see that the girl mechanic (the one who kept the shuttle ready for take off), who has been her confident and closest friend since the first second of the pilot episode, is stone dead on the floor, killed while providing covering fire so that the heroine could go back for her lover. I thought this was incredibly satisfying... fate and rotten dice would the be the ones to blame for the potential death of her love, but now the player/character only has herself to blame for the loss of her closest friend: she put everybody on that shuttle at risk by choosing to go back.
All things, considered I don't regret doing what I did.
Quote from: John Harper on August 26, 2005, 11:33:09 PMAlso: Was everyone else out of fan mail dice or something? Because man, is that ever a conflict that all the players would jump into in my games. Why did no one help her out?
I think the other two players were spent and totally bankrupt; they knew there would be no use hanging on that fan mail beyond the series'/season's finale, so they gave everything they got in a previous scene, in a showdown between their characters where they threw a bucket of dice (like 7-9 dice) at each other in a conflict to end all conflicts. Strangely enough (just another of one whole lot of crazy twists and turns during the series, like falling in love with one's Nemesis), one of the characters was the platoon's commanding officer now siding with the rebels (more or less; he just wanted the entire fascist regime overthrown) and the other an infiltrated rebel agent now siding with a group of powerful people bent on overthrowing the regime so they could help themselves to all that power. The first wanted to rig the bomb to make sure the nuke went off while that "group of powerful people" was still abord the Senate Ship, the second wanted his patrons to leave the ship before the explosion, as per the original plan. Massive conflict!
Anyway, truth be told, I don't think the players would have used the Fan Mail even if they had it. The group never catched on that whole influence the outcome of another player's scene using Fan Mail thing. They did that not more than two or three times during the six episodes, I think.
Man, I'm totally confused about this conflict. So you as producer got to roll all your dice as a whole, while the player had to divide them up? Am I understanding that right?
Who decided what the stakes were? Did everyone get a say in it, or was it just you?
Oh, and one last question, regarding this:
QuoteI killed the 4th character the player/character really cared about.
How did you do that? Was that part of the stakes of a conflict at some point? Was this the same conflict?
It's too bad you can't remember all the details of the exact stakes and who won narration. I can think of several ways you could have set up the stakes in that kind of situation, and it's nice for people to see the specific 'game parts' in action.
Anyway, you ended up with some cool story stuff, that's for sure.
Quote from: Matt Wilson on August 28, 2005, 08:44:39 PM
Man, I'm totally confused about this conflict. So you as producer got to roll all your dice as a whole, while the player had to divide them up? Am I understanding that right?
No, no. Sorry if I didn't made it clear. So here's the situation: we're very near the end of the episode, I have maybe 2-3 budget dice, the player has her Screen Presence at 1, plus 1-2 unused traits (this is 1st edition PTA, where characters have 5 traits) and a few Fan Mail dice.
The player rolled her one Screen Presence die three times, *plus* she got to divide her Trait and Fan Mail dice however she wanted between the three conflicts.
I rolled one "automatic" producer's die three times for the three conflicts, and I specifically said I wouldn't be adding Budget dice. So, I think it was more than fair. I wasn't trying to win this conflict; the whole point was just to see
how differently she cared about each of these three characters. I explained just that to the player; it wasn't my intention to snuff the only(?) NPC I wasn't prepared to let go of just yet (if you look at it I blew the entire setting to Kingdom Come for the series final episode, along with half of the secondary cast, and tried to leave no stone unturned), but of course it didn't occur to me at the time that that death could really happen, eheh.
Quote from: Matt Wilson on August 28, 2005, 08:44:39 PMWho decided what the stakes were? Did everyone get a say in it, or was it just you?
I (the producer) normally decide the stakes, and finish my sentence with something like "What do you think, are you okay with this? Any better ideas?" or, if I can't think of anything really that great, I say "I'm thinking these could be the stakes, but I'm sure we can come up with something more interesting. What do you guys suggest?" This is a little trick I learned from my time as a player in J. Mendes Heritage PTA series, to let the players feel more comfortable participating in the process.
So all our stakes are always open to negotiation if someone wants to have a say; it didn't happen very frequently, but sometimes they prefer other stakes or have better ideas than me.
In this case, I think the other players liked the idea as much as me (we all wanted to know how this love triangle would be untangled because, at that point, we didn't have a clue about the player's intentions... and probably she didn't either, eheh). As for the player in question, she's a dear old friend that trusts me all the way as a GM and a fellow player, and was cool with it. She had to make (yet another!) hard decision, but that's just what I tried to make this series all about: bangs, dilemmas, tough calls, etc. ;)
Quote from: Matt Wilson on August 28, 2005, 08:44:39 PMQuoteI killed the 4th character the player/character really cared about.
How did you do that? Was that part of the stakes of a conflict at some point? Was this the same conflict?
This came up in the same scene, right after the narration of the that conflict, and the process may have in fact started with the narration if indeed the player got the narration and had her character run all the way back to get her fallen comrade.
What followed was entirely decided by me and me only, although if anyone was not okay with it that person could have spoken up and I would have changed it right away.
I think I thought something along these lines... Okay, so the player doesn't want to give up on this NPC just yet and - guess what, you moron? - neither do I. Still, a conflict that was suposed to be life and death has been lost, so there must be a price to pay to give some meaning to this whole thing. As the player delayed the shuttle's departure to run back for her lover, and there was this whole platoon of legionnaires shooting at her and her friends the whole time, I felt entirely entitled to kill one of the persons providing her with covering fire... and not a nameless red shirt, no, someone she cared deeply about. It seemed more than fair, considering I was letting her save the life of her Significant Other.
I wasn't trying to disempower the player or anything; she's made a conscious choice to delay what was already a far too narrow escape, so there's got to be a price. Can't have bangs and hard choices when those bangs and hard choices don't come along with hard consequences.
Quote from: Matt Wilson on August 28, 2005, 08:44:39 PM
It's too bad you can't remember all the details of the exact stakes and who won narration. I can think of several ways you could have set up the stakes in that kind of situation, and it's nice for people to see the specific 'game parts' in action.
Actually, I think I recorded an entire PTA session once, when I had just bought a new digital recorder gadget. If it wasn't this one, it was the previous session... hmm... I'll go check the MP3s and get back to you on this.
Anyway, I'd like to know how would you handle the situation. This all started because I wanted to create a conflict for the scene and thought... "hmm, I could have one of these three NPCs killed, but I don't want to choose one. is there anyway I could let the dice decide between the three?" It was at that moment I hit upon the idea of three simultaneous conflict
and that led me to changing my whole purpose of the conflict from not only creating a suspenseful and thrilling end for the scene but also (and mainly) to forcing the player to show me and the other participants which one or ones of these NPCs she cared most about.
As this was new territory for me, and for the PTA rules, I might not have come up with the perfect stakes for the range of results I was willing to accept what I intended... but, hey, I must have been pretty close! If the stakes indeed were "The NPC is left behind if you fail the conflict" instead of "The NPC gets killed by enemy fire", I didn't even have to backtrack or cheat all that much to let the player run back to her friend. ;)
[Edit. Clarification:
"the perfect stakes for what I intended" changed to
"the perfect stakes for the range of results I was willing to accept")
Quote from: John Harper on August 26, 2005, 11:33:09 PM
You set up an awesome conflict, laid out the stakes for all to see, rolled the dice, and then... fudged the outcome?!
I can't believe it. The girlfriend is dead. Dead dead dead. If she was just going to scrape by with some injuries, why bother rolling at all? Sorry if this sounds harsh, but you broke the cardinal rule of conflict resolution in my opinion.
Oh, come ON. Ricardo did
exactly the right thing here. You want to talk about hitting what it's like to watch a TV show? Man, did he ever
do it. Instead of offing a character that had a lot of potential continuing interest for the viewers, he instead made a choice in narration that
maximized the angst for a central character. Instead of telling Ricardo he did it wrong, let's laud his choice as one that will help to create the most emotionally significant conflicts in episodes to come.
Iago, you are right except for one thing: They should have made it the stakes straight away. That would have been an honest thing to do. And I disagree that it wouldn't have mattered, John. Why do so many people get the notion that conflicts can't be about color stuff? The choice would still have been there: Which person is most important to the player? Not as grave, but still significant.
If you first set the stakes and then fudge them afterwards, that's an indicator that you picked the wrong stakes to begin with. But: It's probably better to correct your mistake whilst you can than to stick with it and put the NPC out of the story for good. Only you should be honest about it. You should tell the players straight in the face: Guys, you know, these stakes were crap. I don't want that character out of the show, or do you?
The way Ric just "ruled" in this instance smacks of GM force, which is just not appropriate in PtA as I understand it.
- Frank
I had a big long reply, and then Frank beat me to it.
QuoteIf you first set the stakes and then fudge them afterwards, that's an indicator that you picked the wrong stakes to begin with.
Totally. And I like the suggestion of being up-front about maybe the stakes being wrong after the fact.
Ricardo, you asked above how I'd do it. In hindsight the stakes sound kind of like "can the protagonist get through this without people she loves coming to harm?"
One drawback to making stakes too specific is it removes some power from the narrator. With stakes like the above, having control of the narration is worth spending some fan mail on.
Quote from: Frank T on August 29, 2005, 11:51:37 AM
Iago, you are right except for one thing: They should have made it the stakes straight away. That would have been an honest thing to do. And I disagree that it wouldn't have mattered, John. Why do so many people get the notion that conflicts can't be about color stuff? The choice would still have been there: Which person is most important to the player? Not as grave, but still significant.
If you first set the stakes and then fudge them afterwards, that's an indicator that you picked the wrong stakes to begin with. But: It's probably better to correct your mistake whilst you can than to stick with it and put the NPC out of the story for good. Only you should be honest about it. You should tell the players straight in the face: Guys, you know, these stakes were crap. I don't want that character out of the show, or do you?
The way Ric just "ruled" in this instance smacks of GM force, which is just not appropriate in PtA as I understand it.
Ricardo said the stakes were (emphasis mine): "If I win the roll, it means that person was shot up pretty badly,
most likely dead."
I might start agreeing with you when you can make what he decided to do inconsistent with that statement of stakes. Most likely does not equal definitely.
There is nothing wrong with creating the sense that death is possible. Even if you don't deliver on it every time.
Quote from: Frank T on August 29, 2005, 11:51:37 AM
Why do so many people get the notion that conflicts can't be about color stuff?
Well, it's in the book (1st ed), page 46:
"A conflict [...] should always make a powerful impact on the story."
Which does not sound like color to me.
But still, I agree: "Which person is most important to the player?" is in my eyes very much significant. Sometimes significant decisions and outcomes do look small at first but get really deep when you think somewhat about them. And I think "which person matters" is one of that kind.
Hello,
Everyone's getting all heated up over nothing and probably dragging in baggage about their own histories of play.
It all comes down the statement of the stakes. If Ric and the group did indeed leave the possibility of death open during this statement, then it was open, and whoever narrated got to say whether whatshername lives or dies. If failure of the conflict was established as including her dying, then she dies. Pretty easy.
The issue is not really to pin the Played It Wrong badge on anyone, with the attendant Group Was Suxxy sign hung on the door of wherever the game was played. The issue is for everyone participating in this thread to see the importance of stating the Stakes in a meaningful, useful, and fully-understood way, during play itself. Are we arriving, as a discussion crew here and now, at that shared understanding?
'Cause one thing's for sure: if narrator fiat can overturn what was stated as the Stakes, that establishes a very slippery slope to a very unpleasant place in play, for this particular game. There. I can say that without anyone flipping out, right? No accusations. Re-read the paragraph right before this one.
Please try to respond without using any version of the phrase "What I meant was ..."
Best,
Ron
Quote from: Ron Edwards on August 29, 2005, 12:30:28 PM
It all comes down the statement of the stakes. If Ric and the group did indeed leave the possibility of death open during this statement, then it was open, and whoever narrated got to say whether whatshername lives or dies. If failure of the conflict was established as including her dying, then she dies. Pretty easy.
(...)
'Cause one thing's for sure: if narrator fiat can overturn what was stated as the Stakes, that establishes a very slippery slope to a very unpleasant place in play, for this particular game. There. I can say that without anyone flipping out, right? No accusations. Re-read the paragraph right before this one.
Yeah -- that pretty much hits it. I didn't see what Ricardo did as inconsistent with the stakes the way they were stated (with "possibly" instead of "definitely"). But you raise something that's worth chewing on -- how far can you go with narrated consequences
in addition to those set by the stakes? Because the first urge I had on reading the example was, "And so, her lover didn't die, but they both got stranded in enemy territory as a cliffhanger. Right? Right?"
Yes, Ron, you're right. I think we are coming to an understanding on that point. I apologize to Ric if my first response was too harsh and judgmental.
The way I see it, PTA plays better when the stakes have concrete meaning. If you establish a conflict with stakes like "Someone might die," then the narrator gets to decide if they die or not, with all of the attendant consensus-checking and group dynamics that go with that. This, to me, is identical to simple fiat by one person, or freeform group decision-making. It doesn't resemble the conflict resolution system of PTA as I understand it.
Aaaah, that's very interesting, because for me, there's a lot of enjoyable tension to be had in whether or not the outcome's going to be in my hands. So I would enjoy the texture of "someone might die" more than I'd enjoy "someone will die", since the former allows for some sensitivity on the part of the narrator to the ebb and flow of the story and the latter says simply that the callous toss of the dice is, once the stakes are set, the sole determinant. I can see why folks who might be on a less "I trust my narrator" footing would be liable to prefer the latter instead, but I give my trust freely and often.
It has nothing to do with trust, Fred. I trust all of my fellow players. That's a given for me. I don't play with people I don't trust.
It has to do with resolving a conflict. What's at stake? The dice roll resolves those stakes. In other words, the point of rolling dice (to me, when I play PTA) is to produce a clear resolution that is then interpreted by the narrator. That's my preference. When you have vague stakes like "Susan might die" then the narrator is creating the resolution. I feel that this creation phase should happen during stakes-setting, not after the dice roll.
To put it another way, if Susan's death is not what's at stake in the conflict, then it can be narrated and approved/disapproved by group consensus after the roll. But what is at stake? That thing, whatever it is, should be resolved one way or the other by the dice. Maybe it's "Does Susan finally show her bravery?" The conflict roll says, "No." That stake is resolved. That's the way I understand conflict rolls in PTA. They create yes/no answers, interpreted by the narrator. Anything that isn't a yes/no issue should not be put up as the primary stakes.
Right, and that's where I disagree. I'm fine with "this range of possible outcomes" as my stake, rather than "this list of definite outcomes" -- and in fact, I may prefer it. So there's some clarity.
Coolio.
Quote from: Ron Edwards on August 29, 2005, 12:30:28 PM
'Cause one thing's for sure: if narrator fiat can overturn what was stated as the Stakes, that establishes a very slippery slope to a very unpleasant place in play, for this particular game. There. I can say that without anyone flipping out, right? No accusations. Re-read the paragraph right before this one.
Hm. Okay:
1. I will sometimes overrule a randomizer in games that are not PTA. I feel no guilt about this, because what has happened is that the randomizer has made it clear that there is something I prefer.
1a. In these cases, the rest of the group is generally in favor of overruling the randomizer, so we're getting group consensus.
2. However, in the case of PTA, overturning the Stakes may lead to play that is not what PTA is all about.
2A. Play that is not what PTA is all about is fine, but is not what should be happening when people agree to play PTA.
3. Were the Stakes actually overturned? Given the phrasing, I would say that, technically, they were not.
3A. While I find the resolution as described acceptable, having the character get captured would also have been cool.
4. If they were overturned, I like the framework of saying, essentially, "We picked the wrong Stakes, and we are fixing things in a way least disruptive to our particular group. This does not endorse future overturnings of Stakes."
4A. Your Mileage May Vary.
5. If they were not overturned, were they, nevertheless, the wrong Stakes? That is, should the narrator have been given the power to decide whether the character lived or died, or should that have been determined in the description of the Stakes?
5A. This leads to a question of what correct Stakes are and how much should be left up to the narrator. I'd be interested in seeing a discussion of this (or is there one on the forum already?).
6. BUT, there is an additional wrinkle here. Specifically, part of What is at Stake is: How much does the
player care about the characters who are important to her character? At this point, the boundaries are getting seriously blurred, and I question to what degree you are playing PTA for this particular conflict.
6A. How pure the PTAness is really isn't something I'm worried about, but it does bear on whether breaking the rules in this case is really, um, breaking the rules. To a degree, the way the conflict was framed already broke the rules.
6B. While I think the whole set up and resolution was cool, not least because it provided food for thought for all of us, I'm okay with hearing that some or all of what happened was outside or in flat contradiction of the rules for PTA.
7. What, if anything, is a group supposed to do if everyone in the group agrees that the result of a conflict is wrong and makes for a less good show?
7A. I'm not sure if this is a side issue or if this is the main point of contention. If it's a side issue, please ignore it or start a new thread about it.
-Lisa
Okay guys, gals, thanks to everyone who chimed in! I have no problem with anyone's comments, at least not so far, in case John (Harper)'s worrying. Just call 'em like you see 'em; I appreciate it, and I have already gotten at least one precious insight from all this:
Quote from: Matt Wilson on August 29, 2005, 12:00:21 PMOne drawback to making stakes too specific is it removes some power from the narrator. With stakes like the above, having control of the narration is worth spending some fan mail on.
Me and my group were all totally new to player narration before trying PTA; in fact, the players still don't feel very confortable with it, and consider it more a chore than an opportunity, but I'm aiming to change that in Dirtside II. It never occured to me that tweaking the stakes a bit could help generate more interest from the players (my stakes are always very clear cut, except maybe for this case here where I was aiming for an altogether different target)... and I bet it never occured to the players that some stakes can be more equal than others. I'll make sure they're aware of the possibilities next time. ;)
However, framing stakes is really not what I wanted to focus discussion on (in case the sentences "I can't even begin to explain how cool I thought this was." and especially "
This is the most important stuff, but no, the story doesn't end here." weren't indication enough). Except for this conflict here, I think I've always laid clear stakes and followed or had them followed to the word, so even though I could use lots of advice on improvements there's no real game-breaking problems to work out....take Ron's advice and don't worry too much!
Before I try to get this back on track, I'd like to clear all the details up with a brief transcript taken from the digital sound recordings I have just unearthed, like I had already promised Matt I'd try to do. So, if you follow me into my next post...
This is a transcript for the entire conflict, from beginning to end, taken from the sound recordings I did at the session. I will use narration to abbreviate some parts.
QuotePlayer has entered the hangar bay with the three said NPCs in tow. There's one hell of a firefight going on between the Legionnaires and the people to whom she gave the task of getting a shuttle ready for the escape. The Player makes a run for the shuttle, taking the NPCs with her.
The Producer pauses for a bit and the Player urges him on. Producer asks the Player how many dice she has left.
Player (replying to question): "Some, but not many... So, what do I have to roll? What's at stake here?"
Producer (avoiding the direct question about the stakes, probably because he hasn't figured out that part yet): "Look, we'll roll three conflicts."
Player (very confused, as she should be as this never happened during the entire series): "Three conflicts?!"
Producer: "One for each NPC you have with you."
The Producer goes on explaning how much dice he'll roll (one die, three times) and how much dice the Player can roll (one Screen Presence die three times, plus her Fan Mail and Trait dice divided between the three rolls however she wants). The Producer then decides the order of the conflicts, trying to make it from lowest to highest in terms of audience interest: The Dad, The Fiancé, The Lesbian Lover. Only now, at the end of the explanations, do the stakes come up...(I must have stalling trying to think things through... evidently it worked, because I got the stakes just right. Read on!)
Producer (speaking slowly): "Those NPCs that fail the conflict are... are hurt.... and... and fall behind."
The Player moans. Then she has a doubt about what she can or should roll. The Producer explains everything again, in detail, sounding much more confident. The other players help to clear things up for her.
Producer: "The idea is to see in which NPCs you spend your dice!"
The other players laugh out loud at this. The Player moans.
Producer (Refering to the fact that all NPCs have the same base chance to make it, and that the Player's distribution of her dice is the only factor that can influence the odds.): "Indirectly, I'm placing the decision in your hands."
The other players start making suggestions, and throwing praise and/or derrogatory comments at this or that NPC. The Player, starting to realize how deep a hole she's in, asks again for a clarification on the entire process. The Producer is happy to oblige (I wanted her to make a conscious choice, nothing else would do). The Player moans extensively... again.
And finally it starts. The Father goes first.
Player: "Screw Dad. He only gets one die."
The Player wins this conflict, and the Producer gets narration. Producer says two or three brief sentences about how her dad is running at her side, shooting his service revolver at the Legionnaires.
Producer: "Now for the next one..."
Other Player (giving advice to The Player, and playing right into the Producer's plan): "You're thinking of dividing your dice equally between the other two. It's gonna end badly. You're gonna frag them both!"
Next conflict is for the Fiancé. The other players taunt the Player, joking that's she already killed him once and saying that she should make up for it now. They're refering to a previous scene where she was put as the leader of the firing squad that was to execute him and how she made no move - besides hesitating and delaying the firing order until she could delay no more - to save him, choosing instead to save her military career... fortunately the firing squad turned out to be an elaborate device of one of the more shadowy NPCs, created to make people think the traitor Fiancé was dead and to raise the suspicions that were hanging over the Player's PC.
The Player gives her Fiancé a total of two dice, and she wins with two successes! The Player doesn't really narrate anything, but at least she explains how the trait she used to win the conflict helps her get her Fiance safely to the shuttle.
Now for her Lesbian Lover and ex-Nemesis.
Player: "So, at best you only get one success, right?"
Producer: "That's right... and at worst you only get zero, right?"
Player (laughs nervously): "I didn't want to spend all my Fan Mail, there might be other important scenes... oh, screw it. I'll roll everything I got: my Screen Presence, my connection Lilly, and both my Fan Mail dice."
Producer: "Hey, now we know who she likes best!"
Other Player: "Exactly! Now that was lovely."
Player: "I hope she [the NPC] knows it!"
Producer: "Oh, she'll feel it."
Player and Producer roll the dice. It's a 1-1 tie! Everybody laughs very loud!
Player: "The horror! I can't believe it! Ooooh, so much pain..."
Other Player: "I can't believe it! She's not out of the woods yet!"
Producer (narrates a bit): "So, you're running along to the shuttle. The bad guys are shooting at you and at the ship. You're a bit-"
Other Player: "The audience isn't gonna like it if you kill her lover!!"
Player and Producer roll their success die again, to un-tie, and the Producer comes out on top! The Player moans loudly...
Other Player (joking): "Ouch! No way, I'm out of here! Don't worry, we all lost a Connection this episode, so..."
Player: "Hey, don't kill her. Listen, I'll stay behind. I'll stay."
Producer tries to say something.
Player (groaning): "Oh, no. The pain!"
Producer narrates the NPC getting shot and falling over the PC, both of them tumbling to the ground.
Player (in-iharacter, screaming the NPC's name): "KC!!!!!! I'll fall back... I'll fall back..."
Producer hesitates.
Player: "I'll fall back..."
Other Player (throwing a suggestion and mentioning the mechanic girl friend of the PC, the Connection the Player in this lost conflict): "Lilly can also fall behind. KC can become unconcious as both girls drag her into the ship."
Producer (to Player): "Ha... who are you willing to trade for KC?"
Player (very nervous): "Do I have to trade?"
Everybody laughs.
Player: "How about Dad?" [Laughs... and moans.] "The pain. Two Fan Mail dice... I can't believe it!"
Other Player: "That's not pain. The real pain is she [the NPC] getting k-"
Player: "It's not that! It's just I used two Fan Mail dice on her and still she died! Or maybe..."
Producer says something... maybe "Your fault!"
Player: "Wait, I'll go back."
Other Player (slowly, to Producer): "You're very cruel, Ricardo, very cruel..."
Player: "It's the dice, the dice. That's why I like Amber [Diceless]! Come on, I go back! How is she?"
The Producer narrates the scene, going for the gory details of the big stomach wound and the deafening noise that the ship's engines are starting to make. The Player picks her lover up.
Producer: "And Lily is-"
Player (in-character, to her friend Lilly): "Hold it, hold the ship!"
The Producer narrates Lily coming to rescue the PC and NPC. The 3 of them reach the ship, run across the loading ramp and throw themselves to the ground once inside. The door closes behind them, but the shots still ricochet on the ship's body. Eventually the player realizes her friend Lily is not moving...
Producer: "Maybe that spreading red spot on her back has something to do with it?"
The Player moans.
And the scene goes on from here, with the PC taking the controls of the ship (she's the pilot) and yelling for the other persons aboard to take care of her two dying friends. Minutes later, after the danger has passed, the Fiancé brings her Lily's dead body and rests it on the co-pilot's seat... Tough luck.
Wow, such sweet memories this brings! I loved almost all of these interactions, and the group dynamic was just right (although the third player didn't contribute that much at this point). Now I really have to put this MP3 on our site. After all, that was why I recorded the session in the first place.
So, in conclusion, apparently, I'm more smart than I thought. The stakes were exactly right; what happened was just what the stakes demanded: the NPC got shot and fell behind; nothing more, nothing less. There was talk of characters dying, but that was entirely outside of the stakes declaration. So I didn't cheat by not having the lady killed.
As for the character that ended up dying, it turned out to be rather poetic... that character was the Connection that the Player used to augment her Screen Presence in the failed roll, and she was also the one who helped her save her friend. I *did* ask the player if she was ready to make a trade, and she even offered Daddy as a sacrifice to the Great God Crom The Producer, but I decided her other lady friend was more of a fair trade (although I didn't discuss this with the player before I made it happen).
I'm very happy with the results... but I had already told you that, eheh.
Hey Ricardo,
Thanks for posting that transcript! Great stuff. We should all try to record our games more often. It's very interesting to "hear" the real game being spoken by the players.
Thanks, John! I thought it kinda cool to hear all that stuff again; now that I'm not trying to think fifty things at once, I realised how much of the group dynamics had slipped by me unoticed. There were lots of cool small things I never noticed going on, and this just in 15 minutes of play. On the downside, the recordings are be somewhat boring to those outside the game (and even to those that were there)... lots of pauses/silences here and there that you never notice while gaming because your mind is racing between fifty places; also you always have facial expressions, gestures, etc, to keep track of.
Anyway, and finally moving the discussion away from the correctness of the statement of the stakes and the resolution of the conflict, here's what I thought most important about this "moment to remember": the clear and direct relationship between the player's management of resources (Trait and Fan Mail dice) and the player's emotional engagement (if that's the correct term) with the elements envolved in the conflict/stakes.
I know, I know, this is pretty basic; at least in this kind of game, with this kind of conflict resolution, obviously the players will spend their resources to make happen the things they want to happen, and keep from happening things they don't want to happen. My 7 weeks old daughter could have figured that one out by herself. I had just never seem this so clearly, right there in front me, unfiltered by other considerations in an equation where there were no other variables to keep track of except for one: the player's commitment.
This was in fact so clear - because of the way the multiple conflict were simultaneously set up, with identical stakes for each and sharing the same base chance of success/failure - that you could evaluate on a numerical scale how much the player cared for each of the three NPCs involved in relation to one another: Dad is a 1, Fiancé is a 2, and Lover is a 4.
You normally don't get to see things this clearly, that's all. The important conflicts are always spread between the session in different scenes, always involve different stakes, and the opposition the player has to beat (i.e. the Producer's Budget dice) varies a lot and has a most direct influence on the number of resources the player spends. So you can't compare various conflicts to each other; you might know which one's the player cares most about, but it's probably not through the mechanics you reach that conclusion.
Is there a new game mechanic hiding in here? Maybe a game where the player, faced with a specific sort of a, for instance, Family vs Duty bang, can spread his pool of resources between both, maybe trying to keep Family and Career at the risk of getting neither, or maybe prefering to play it more safely by choosing one over the other and concentrating his resources on that one?
At the very least, I think there's a use for simultaneous conflicts of the sort I narrated here: non-conflicting (with each other, of course) conflicts, that happen at the same time, have the same stakes and have the same base chance of success/failure. This way, the way the player spreads his resources between the various conflicts tells you exacly how much she cares for each one in relation to each other... at least in a perfect world where the player doesn't simply choose to divide the resources equally.
What do you think?
Okay, so now I can finally go back to Lisa's comments...
Quote from: Lisa Padol on August 29, 2005, 04:12:40 PM
6. BUT, there is an additional wrinkle here. Specifically, part of What is at Stake is: How much does the player care about the characters who are important to her character? At this point, the boundaries are getting seriously blurred, and I question to what degree you are playing PTA for this particular conflict.
As it turns out, now that I have unearthed the voice recordings and provided a transcript here, I'm pretty certain I managed to do all this without stepping outside the rules of the game. The stakes were framed correctly, and the narration/resolution didn't deviate one bit from the stakes. The only thing non-PTAish is the three conflicts in one scene bit, which I'm not sure if it's a hard fast rule or just an advice.
As for the "How much do you care about each of these characters?" angle, that was the reason I did things the way I did. I asked that question, and received my answer, working only through the mechanics of PTA. The only "blur" you could see there is that I made the player aware of my nefarious purpose; however, I don't think leaving my explanations out of it would make any difference in the way she handled things.
Quote from: Lisa Padol on August 29, 2005, 04:12:40 PM
7. What, if anything, is a group supposed to do if everyone in the group agrees that the result of a conflict is wrong and makes for a less good show?
7A. I'm not sure if this is a side issue or if this is the main point of contention.
I'm sure we're all in agreement here that if the group thinks the outcome of the conflict is less than stellar and needs to be changed, that's either because they didn't choose the right stakes or because they shouldn't have made a conflict out of that particular event. So no contention, there! Like John Harper first pointed out, disregarding the outcome of the conflict resolution mechanic is opening a can of worms and a dangerous start on a path to... hmmm... nowhere? :)