PTA Conflicts Doggy Style?

[Jason Newquist]

So, in the last month I bought and read both Dogs and PTA, and I must say, I'm quite taken with these games.  I like 'em both quite a bit.  I love the framework of PTA - creating a show, very low GM prep, collaboration of scenes, fan mail, super accessible.  But I love the Conflict Resolution of Dogs, too - say yes or roll dice, stakes, fallout, and escalation!

I'm wondering if anyone else has looked at these two games and thunk to themselves, "Gee.  I wish I could play PTA with Dogs-ish conflict resolution."  Like, with escalation and stuff.  Where tossing in dice and budget and fan mail  and all that stuff has some meaning beyond "include this [character|edge|connection] in the narration of the resolution".

Any people who've played the game(s) before - do you see what I'm getting at?  Any ideas if, or how, it could work?

Thanks,
Jason

[Danny_K]

Is there anything you'd specifically need to take from PTA for this.  Not to threadjack, but before my online DitV game imploded, I was running it very much in TV show style, complete with casting calls, opening credits, camera angles, the whole nine yards.  That's a stylistic choice you can make with any system, it seems to me.

[Jason Newquist]

Is there anything you'd specifically need to take from PTA for this.

Hi Danny,

I'm not sure what you mean.  Hmm.  I'll add some more words, and maybe that'll help describe what I mean.

I love how conflicts escalate and become full of "how far should I take this?" and "is it worth the consequences?" choices in Dogs.  Love it.  You get to really sink your teeth into conflicts as they unfold.

For certain kinds of PTA games (probably not all), it seems like this sort of thing might be an interesting option, as well (rather than tallying dice, rolling, counting successes, and narrating a result with all the elements brought into play during the tally).

This is me just wondering if the idea floats or sinks.  If it floats, maybe it's worth exploring.

[TonyLB]

Jason, at a guess I think Danny's saying "Why not just play Dogs?"

Or, more specifically, if you start from a Dogs baseline, what elements of PTA's structure would you want to add into the mechanics support?

[Jason Newquist]

Jason, at a guess I think Danny's saying "Why not just play Dogs?"

Or, more specifically, if you start from a Dogs baseline, what elements of PTA's structure would you want to add into the mechanics support?

I listed some favorite features for each game:

Dogs: say yes or roll dice, fallout, escalation, dramatic force
PTA: series creation, very low GM prep, strong co-authorship, incredibly accessible aesthetic

It seems like it might be easier to introduce most of my favorite Dogs feartures into PTA than the other way around.  Fallout is tricky, unfortunately -- and without fallout, escalation during conflict is robbed of some of its bite.  This is kinda what I'm mulling over.

Maybe using traits and connections dice is free, but to use your screen presence you have to put something at risk.  And the consequence of that risk is, if you lose, those dice go into a penalty box, or something -- requiring some kind of rescue.

I'm thinking of episodes where protagonists become prone and powerless after they've taken a risky action and failed.  Alias, where Sydney is captured, or Buffy where her powers fail her.  At some point, something happens when *boom* -- they're back.  Their screen presence dice are suddenly back in play.

Or something.

[Chris Goodwin]

I'm thinking of episodes where protagonists become prone and powerless after they've taken a risky action and failed.  Alias, where Sydney is captured, or Buffy where her powers fail her.  At some point, something happens when *boom* -- they're back.  Their screen presence dice are suddenly back in play.

Or something.

Except that Screen Presence doesn't represent Sydney's special skills or Buffy's slayer power.  It represents their story power.  

Having their Screen Presence go away would be the equivalent of suddenly having the story no longer focus on them, which is not what happens in those situations.  It sounds like this would be better represented by narration, possibly including the spending of fan mail.

[Damocles]

How about something like this:

When a player has failed a roll, but has narration rights, they can chose to have a follow-up conflict. The follow-up conflict is resolved as normal, except that successes on the follow-up conflict can, at the player's choice, be counted towards the original roll. Plus, the follow-up conflict ought to up the scales significantly.

Example:

Player: Let's see, I have two successes, highest one is a 7.
Producer: I have three successes, highest die is a 5. So, how does the hostage bite?
Player: Damn it.... I call for a follow-up conflict. And I risk...damn...I risk my character's life.
Producer: You sure about that? Remember, we want every possible outcome to be acceptable story-wise here?
Player: Well, it'd be a bit of a downer, but a heroic sacrifice would be a good ending. And it'd kind of fit with my decision in the spotlight episode.
Producer: All right then. I'll be nice and put in just two dice. Anyone want to spend fan-mail here? ... Yeah, I thought so. Okay. I have...two successes, highest is a 9.
Player: Damn it. Okay, so I need five successes to save the hostage and survive, right?
Producer: Well, we reroll on ties, as normal. So with four successes you'd get one victory and one tie. With three successes, you'd get an interesting choice: Either two ties or one clear victory and one clear loss.
Player: Okay, I get it. All right. Her goes nothing....

[Matt Wilson]

Hey Jason:

Under the terms of your non-extant game warranty, if you radically alter the game you can no longer call tech support for help.

But seriously, I think to make PTA more like Dogs (which I tried to do and failed in a really early draft), you need more dice available. I mean, how much seeing and raising are you going to get from SP 2, an edge and a connection?  You'd need to revise how many dice you get for stuff, which might cause you other problems.

And I'm not sure the real kick of escalation will fit with any show. What if you did Moose in the City? When are you going to escalate to violence in that show?

And most important, what happens to the rule where you can spend fan mail as an outside party in a conflict?

If you can figure out all those, you are a rock star, and I will make you a badge that says "key grip."

[Danny_K]

I get what you're saying.  That does sound very interesting, actually.  Maybe after getting to play PTA, I'll have something more helpful to say about it.

EDIT: One place to start is to look at the complete lack of negative traits in PTA: what I mean is, everybody's got issues and edges and contacts, but even a negative quality is just grist for the mill.  Even a Nemesis is just there for color, and doesn't make your character any more or less "effective" in dice-rolling terms.  So "Fallout" would just be more narrative color, really.

[Jason Newquist]

Matt - Understood about the warranty.  :)  I'm interested in what you tried to do with Dogging up conflict resolution, and why you backed away from it.

In the meantime, still mulling stuff over, chaps.

How about this?  One way to add a little chewiness and some gravity without messing with the core mechanic might be to look at what happens when you roll LOW.  Rolling high gets you narration, but rolling low might get you Consequences...

- Rolling a 1 on any die in a conflict means you take Episode Consequences.  One point of Episode Consequences per 1 rolled. (Therefore, if you want rare Consequences, use big dice.  If you want lots of Consequences, use small dice.)  Episode Consequences represent things which render them less effective during a single conflict.  Things which sucker-punch them, injure or damage them, cause them to go bonkers, emotionally overwhelm them, and so forth.
- Episode Consequences should be exercised in the current episode.  Each point of Consequences is used by electing to NOT roll a SP, Edge, or Connection die when you otherwise could have.  Episode Consequences map to unrolled dice one to one.
- Episode Consequences can be bought off with Fan Mail, one for one.  (Assuming you permit Fan Mail to persist from one episode to the next, which I think is how the game normally works.)
- Episode Consequences left unexercised and not bought off by Fan Mail by the end of an episode become "Story Consequences".  These are long-term effects which should be taken into account while plotting dramatic plot developments. They should always address the Protagonist's Issue.
- Think of Story Consequence points as dramatic shadows where each point counts for an episode.  To exercise 3 points of Story Consequence, an event should happen whose effects are palpably felt for that many episodes.  As a guideline, limit Story Consequences to twice the Protagonist's Screen Presence for that episode.
- When a Protagonist ends an episode with a number of Story Consequence points which exceeds the number of episodes in a season, the studio gets involved!  First, the players are to take this as a mandate from the studio to introduce a truly dire event for that Protagonist as soon as their Screen Presence permits it.  Second, the player's Consequence score is wiped clean.
- Story Consequences are another case when Edges and Connections might be refactored in play, in addition to the Spotlight Episode. Especially dire consequences!
[/list:u]
This is a shot in the dark, and is probably far too detailed without so much as an hour of playtest.  :)

Anyway, thoughts?  Reactions?

[Vaxalon]

It's my sense that there's room to use the escalation mechanic in PTA.

What would work better, though, I think, would be to use screen presence and fanmail in Dogs.

[Matt Wilson]

- Rolling a 1 on any die in a conflict means you take Episode Consequences.  One point of Episode Consequences per 1 rolled.

In a very old version of the game, I had something like that. On a d10, you got a success on 7+, and a "setback" on a range of 1 to your current screen presence. You could cancel out a setback by also cancelling out a success. That meant that when you had high SP you had greater chance of success but also greater chance of a setback.

[Jason Newquist]

It's my sense that there's room to use the escalation mechanic in PTA.

What would work better, though, I think, would be to use screen presence and fanmail in Dogs.

This might be true.  I'll turn it around in my head a little bit.  Thanks for the thought.

-Jason

[Jason Newquist]

In a very old version of the game, I had something like that. On a d10, you got a success on 7+, and a "setback" on a range of 1 to your current screen presence. You could cancel out a setback by also cancelling out a success. That meant that when you had high SP you had greater chance of success but also greater chance of a setback.

Hmm!  Cool.

Were these setbacks applicable to the current conflict, or could you accumulate them over time, and then drop them on your guy like a ton of bricks?

Why did you ditch the idea?  Do you think these things worked better narrated rather than quantified?