[Primetime Adventures] The Heel, episode 2

[Ron Edwards]

Hiya,

So session #2 of The Heel aired last Saturday! This is the first time I'm playing Primetime Adventures through multiple sessions, so it's a big challenge and a chance to see the Screen Presence system play as a process, rather than a snapshot.

Present were: me, Tod, Julie, Maura, Tim, and special guest Matt Snyder, who was visiting for the weekend. What should the guest do? Play a guest star? Sit and watch? Or what? Fortunately, none of these traditional options were necessary. Given that our PTA play is exceptionally communal, with anyone and everyone making suggestions for narration or scene framing at all times, including Matt as a non-GM but non-player was easy as pie. He just joined in, much as Deb joined in as described in [Trollbabe] Turk & Helga - and Deb. It worked especially well for PTA because the game includes a turn order for scene framing (like Universalis and Soap), so he was formally "fixed" into the routine of play as well.

I'm beginning to think that role-playing as an activity might do very well to include people who are neither GM nor player in the traditional sense, and by "include," I mean, have such people have just as much credibility and narrational presence as anyone else. I've seen this before in playing Sorcerer and InSpectres, especially, and it's a tremendous addition for everyone involved.

A bit of background: the original thread about our first session was [Primetime Adventures] The Heel. Those who've read it will note that Matt Wilson was kind enough not to point out how we inadvertently disobeyed the rules - our season opener wasn't supposed to be a spotlight episode for any character, let alone two out of four. But you know? It didn't seem to make much difference; both Julie and Tod seemed to like the idea of the high-pressure blowout-without-buildup for their characters, clearing the road for Kimmy, the title character, to dominate most of the rest of the season.

That basic idea was reinforced by Tim choosing episode #2 for Billy's spotlight episode, again, leaving three whole episodes to be basically for/about Kimmy. That's what this one was, Billy center stage with his Screen Presence at 3, Patty with a 2, and Hugh and Kimmy with 1's.

We started with a couple of buildup scenes, playing off the ideas that cropped up at the end of the first session: filming commercials, which turned out to be a big deal, especially Maura's appalling depiction of Kimmy saying "Grrr! Sometimes I feel not so fresh!" for a panty-liner commercial, which pretty much dropped jaws around the table. Until Billy got going, it appeared that the basic conflict was whether The Heel would ever get any decent commercials.

Since the rolls about this resulted in a couple of key failures, the problem was extended to the end of the episode, as opposed to being raised and done-with. So it ended up acting as an excellent framing device. As I pointed out, what the characters in the show think is the main conflict isn't necessarily what the viewing audience enjoys as the main conflict.

Anyway, I'll open it up for others to contribute regarding what happened and how it went, until I work up more descriptions of my own.

Best,
Ron

[Ben Lehman]

Hey, yeah, I've done just that for the last three episodes of Epidemonology.

PTA is a great game for it, but nonetheless not having a character is beginning to wear.  Interesting, I don't think this is coming out of old habits, but rather that not having a character reduces fan-mail gaining opportunities to suggestions and scene framing.  Clearly, a non-character-controlling non-GM player needs to have their own way to shine, something that PTA presently lacks.  (Not meant as a slight to PTA -- it wasn't designed with this sort of play in mind at all, and yet it works admirably well for it, which is outstanding.)

Speaking of which -- did Matt give and recieve fanmail?

yrs--
--Ben

[Matt Snyder]

Hi, Ben. I was able to give fanmail from the Producers's spent budget, which I think I did only once (is that right, gang?).  If I was able to receive fanmail, I didn't realize this. I think we assumed that since I had no character to control, it wasn't necessary. Of course, it could have worked for me to receive fanmail to then spend in support of others. It just didn't happen that way.

What did happen was fun stuff, though.

We started with some player introductions to their characters, mostly to jog my memory. Julie had a very clear starting point idea -- the commercials. Ron's right. They featured heavily in play.

But, so did Billy, Tim's character. Billy is the show's "Radar O'Reilly" character, but he has dreams of more than gopher-dom. It was his spotlight episode. So, the first scene after the "disastrous" commercials was Hugh (Tod's character) being told by corporate to clean out the show from the "bottom up" (show catch-phrase!) starting with THIS guy (Billy!).

So, we had Hugh confronting Billy, aiming to fire him! But, worse, Billy was showing his mom the ropes that day. Conflict ensued. Thanks to some fanmail and Billy's mom, Hugh backed down, and Billy still had a job.

We did a couple other scenes after that point. Let's see ... oh yes, an office brou-ja-ja about the commercials. I hope Julie and Tod can inform more there -- they framed those scenes, I think.

Then it was my turn. I introduced Walter, a promoter/producer in the locker room where Billy was cleaning up. Lance, the insufferable face wrestler character (NPC) thought Walter was trying to recruit him for rival show "Wrestle America". Nope. I was after Billy. Walter offered Billy almost triple his pay to come be a face wrestler for Wrestle America.

He accepted!

At that point, the show really became the issue of whether he'd return to the much more (dysfunctional) family-like show where he was wanted, or stay on with promise of fame-and-fortune at Wrestle America where he very clearly was not wanted! We even had one delightful montage scene with Walter standing in front of hellish pyrotechnics to accent the awful Faustian bargain Billy had made.

I think I'll others take it from here. Here are a couple observations from the game:

I loved the high-die narration (Go figure! Dust Devils, anyone?). That's because it kept anyone from bullying anyone else. I can't tell you how many times I had ideas for the direction of the story, only to be blindsided by someone else's even better idea. But, there was enough system there for me to rock the boat my way as well.

This is, I think, where freeform play falls down. Bullying makes it not work. And, when I say bullying, I'm talking about sway, not nastiest. For example, say our group had been playing freeform. I could have "bullied" the group with an excuse like "Hey, guys, I'm the guest star just visiting Chicago. Think we could go my way today?" That's bullying, too. So is "Thanks, lover, I'm glad you went my way with the story. John's idea over there was fun, but I think we'll all like this one best."

So, for that reason alone, Big thumbs up for Prime Time Adventures, Matt Wilson! Fortunately, there are other reasons.

[Matt Wilson]

Those who've read it will note that Matt Wilson was kind enough not to point out how we inadvertently disobeyed the rules

I was worried that the shame might have been too great for you all.

Regarding the extra player situation, I agree with Ben. It'd be nice to have formal rules for how to accomodate sit-in players. If not GM and not 'player,'  then something. Audience? Maybe a rule like you always get dealt 1 card for every conflict, and you can place it wherever you want. That would be some ultimate audience participation right there.

[Ben Lehman]

In Epidemonology I've taken the role of "fanbase" up to and including talking about the contents of fanfic and the discussions on the messageboards.  It is a rather cute little thing.

yrs--
--Ben

[Mike Holmes]

Hmm. How about the extra players are "audience" and thus get lots of free fanmail dice to spend each session? Or they get to approve everybody else's fanmail expenditures. I mean that really puts them in the consumer/catbird seat. What the viewer wants, the viewer gets. :-)

Mike

[Ron Edwards]

The way we did it, just for documentarian input, was that Matt could give fanmail.

So players of characters could give and receive, the GM could do neither, and Matt could give. He also took his turn in the scene-framing order, just like all participants, as I mentioned.

I kind of liked it that way.

Best,
Ron

[Eero Tuovinen]

Regarding the extra player situation, I agree with Ben. It'd be nice to have formal rules for how to accomodate sit-in players. If not GM and not 'player,'  then something. Audience? Maybe a rule like you always get dealt 1 card for every conflict, and you can place it wherever you want. That would be some ultimate audience participation right there.

From my play experiences it wouldn't be impossible to handle this by creating a couple or three optional, enchancing roles that focus on the implicit meta-level of TV show creation. Kinda like the Director (which, as the name implies, isn't really about the content-level like the character roles), but some other role. By having more than one of these one could also match guest players to roles that offer interaction they like.

Nothing would stop one from having some simple, logical rules for each different visitor role. As an example, let me stat up the audience:

AUDIENCE: as already suggested, the primary "role" here is to get entertained and offer traditional audience reactions (in addition to general kibbitzing that all players do). If this is about full-blown rules alterations, I'd perhaps allow the audience player(s) to create and maintain "audience traits" that depict the audience segments of the TV show. So the audience player could choose to comment on the show from the viewpoints of his "housewives" trait or his "gays" trait, and thus establish those as growing or diminishing fan bases of the show. Perhaps not rate these numerically, but just as something that can be activated through suitable commentary/feedback, to be deactivated when used. Or do it exactly like the other characters are done, by choosing 3/2 audience traits when creating the audience "character". These traits could also be used for dice normally, just like the traits of other players. The player would have to explain how a given audience segment backs certain actions, of course.

In practice the "audience profile" could be created when first creating the show, or when it's first needed for a visiting player. It'd stay the same for the whole show after being created, unless the events of the show warrant a change (like when the execs decide to change the audience segment the show's made for). The audience profile for the Heel could be, for example, as follows (using the 2/1 trait numbers):
The Heel audience:
Segments:
Wrestling fans, wishing the celebrate the art and athletics
Core audience of television drama, appreciating characterization and plotting
Personages:
Harry, the primary sponsor of the show likes soap opera
Personal set:
The Wrestling ring

However, the audience is hardly the only option. How about making a visiting player the cameraman? He'd be then always first deferred to when describing the set at the start of the scene, and he could also decide where the camera "looks" at crucial moments, thus affecting the interpretation of the scene significantly. Will he shoot the guy who gave that weighty comment, or does the camera cut to the other party, waiting for a reply? Or will the brutal breakdown be shown in exacting detail, or is the scene actually cut off and the audience left to guess on the details? That kind of thing. Essentially a weirdly defined co-director. He could have a "camera budget" to be used for dice, with a maximum spending of one die per camera angle/trick used to shoot the conflict. The dice could come from all the fan mail dice that don't go to the Director...

Then again, from what I've seen, most people seem to play the tv show aspect of the game a lot more subdued than we do. I think it's half of the fun, though, and we already roleplay audience comments, define camera angles and discuss the difficulties of getting the special effects right even without any rules for it.

[Maura Byrne]

I don't think it's all that necessary to have a formal mechanism for non-PCs-non-GMs.  Well, not beyond the old improv rule:  if you're not one of the principal characters in the scene, you're anybody else - or everybody else.  For instance, sometimes a player will come on stage, utter a line or two, and then leave to help establish the physical setting.  (My favorite memory of this was when a character was put on a chicken farm, and one of the players came on as a chicken, clucked, and left.)  Also, if someone is mentioned prominently, like the characters' boss, then the boss has to show up in the scene.  Or if the scene founders, someone can come on to pull it onto a track.  

Same thing here.  In our episode, Matt brought in Walter and that character had a plot presence that was awfully important to how the story went.  Without Walter there, the episode could easily have taken a tack where Hugh spends the episode trying to fire Billy, but with various wacky coincidences getting in his way.  Instead, we got a stronger story that was directly about Billy's aspirations and why he would want to stick with Wrestle-Rama at all.

I don't mean to say that Matt would have to be Walter through the entire episode, but he brought in a character who would be vital to the plot, and we kind of needed Walter to be there.  If not Walter, then somebody else.

And I'll chime in to say that PTA is a great way to spend an afternoon.  I didn't get to do much, since Kimmy had a 1 for this episode, and my big chance to narrate a scene related to Kimmy's issue, but I didn't put any other PCs in the scene and there was no actual confilct to roll dice for.  I just wound up talking with one of the twins who were in the Wrestle-Rama  beer commercial.  ("Wait," you say, "there are twins?"  Like you even have to ask.  Of course there are twins.  Anna and Marie.  They're blond.)  Kimmy gets the message about her commercial being unsuccessful from Anna.  "Do you know how some girls can wear heels on a date, and some girls can't?"  End, basically, of Kimmy's significant input in this episode.  But I got to address my issue a little bit.  And I had a great time regardless.  That's because I could contribute to everything as it happened, so I was part audience (like everybody at the table) and part player.