[PTA] Sleepy Hollow - First Playtest Notes

[Pôl Jackson]

I ran a game of Primetime Adventures for the first time last night. (My first game of PTA ever! My first indie RPG, too!) Our pitch: "Dawson's Creek" meets "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow". It's a coming-of-age story set in 1773 America. There will be dark things creeping in the forest, and the rising tide of war, and very emotional teenagers. The show is titled simply "Sleepy Hollow". (I wanted to call it, "The Hollow", and I wanted to the tag line to be, "You'll Lose Your Head!". Thankfully, I was overruled.) It went really well! We're going fit this game into our regular schedule.

This isn't the Actual Play report I do hope to write up an Actual Play report, someday soon. (I'll post the link when I do.) This post is just some notes and feedback on the game.

1.)  We spent a good two hours on the pitch & character generation. Which is good! We got a really solid premise and fantastic characters. It just didn't give us enough time to play out the Pilot, afterwards. (It'll be a two-parter.) I'll be running PTA as a Con game in November, so the time crunch will be an issue. I think it'll be OK, as long as I keep one eye on the clock and keep the players focused.

2.)  During play, I knew that there was a rule about how many times you could use a Trait. I could not find that rule! Play bogged while I scanned the book, flipping pages in vain. (2nd ed, by the way.) I eventually just gave up, and decided not to worry about it. I finally found the rule, after the game; it's under "Basic Rules Concepts", in the Introduction. I really think that this information should also be in the "Conflict" section, under "Step 4: Applying Traits and Fan Mail" (p. 63-64). It should also appear under "Conflict Summary" in the appendices (p. 105). For me, that's the obvious place for that rule.

3.) Speaking of the Summaries in the appendices... they're fantastic, but I really want to see them on the character sheet! I think it would be extremely useful for a player to have that information at her fingertips. I'll definitely want to whip something up for next time I'm teaching PTA.

4.) I found myself really wishing for a form I could fill out that would act as a character roster. I'm envisioning a form with spaces for character info from all the PCs (Player Name, Character Name, Issue, Traits, Nemesis, Notes), as well as spaces for other NPCs & miscellaneous game notes. Again, I'll probably make one up for the next time I run PTA.

5.) There was almost a serious problem at the table while we were brainstorming the Premise. One player got really inspired by the "Sleepy Hollow" idea, to the point where she was opposed to doing anything else. Another player just wasn't interested in the pitch. I was able to negotiate something that made everybody happy (by bumping up the supernatural content), but it was a really touchy situation. I was having unpleasant visions of having to cancel the game because we couldn't agree on a Premise! (Not to mention hurt feelings, player frustration, etc.) Next time I teach PTA, I must remember to tell people up front not to get too attached to their show ideas, and to give other people's ideas a fair shake. This game demands compromise.

Other than those (fairly minor) things, the game went great! In the two scenes we had, we had no problems with setting the scene, arranging conflicts, setting stakes, determining outcome, or narration. It was golden.

I'm falling asleep in the chair, here, so I apologize in advance for any babbling and/or spelling errors. I'll try to get that Actual Play report up next week, sometime.

- Pôl

[Matt Wilson]

Pôl:

Thanks for all the feedback. There's a few of those itty bitty rule thingies that ought to be easier to find, I think, and I'll see to that next time I get it printed.

As for the reference sheets, that's another thing on the list. There's even a placeholder for them on the website. I just haven't taken the fifteen minutes necessary to cut/paste and make them look purty. One of these days I'll catch up.

Glad you're having fun overall.

edit: and the show sounds cool!

[John Harper]

Great show concept. I'd watch it.

About the "holding on too tightly" thing during your Pitch:
Consider this time as a player audition. If someone can't play nice and compromise and get along during the pitch, odds are, they will be trouble during the game, too. Depending on who the person is, this trouble may be worth it. That's for you to judge. The point is, the Pitch phase takes most of the skills needed for PTA play.