[PTA] St. Sebastian

[joshua neff]

The first thing: I haven't actually played PTA since it was a playtest document, but I've wanted to play it more.

The second thing: As soon as we moved back to Kansas City, my wife and I have been pushing PTA as one game that we think our friends would really dig. Unfortunately, we never really got much of a response, so we sort of dropped it.

Our friend Gregg came over last weekend to play something with us. I offered three choices: Capes, Vincent Baker's as-yet-unnamed fantasy game, and PTA. Gregg said that since we'd already played Capes once, we should give something else a try—how about PTA? Now, of all of my friends, Gregg was the one I thought would like PTA the most. Gregg is a pop culture fiend. He watches a number of popular TV dramas (especially Alias, Lost, and Grey's Anatomy), watches huge amounts of "reality TV," and keeps his finger firmly on the pulse of celebrity gossip.

So, Julie (my wife), Gregg, and I sat down and brainstormed an idea for a show. We decided on a medical drama, focusing on the General Surgery team at a major metropolitan hospital. We came up with a half-dozen characters, and then Gregg and Julie picked one each to play, while I took the Producer role. We named the show after the hospital: St. Sebastian.

Julie took the role of Dr. Lowell Cabot, son of the hospital's Chief of Staff. He's a legacy doctor, and a real fuck-up. He's trying to prove that he's not "just the son of a great doctor," but he sleeps around, abuses booze and drugs, and shares an apartment with his old Ivy League college roommate, who's even more of a fuck-up (and therefore a major enabler), which isn't helping his image. His issue is Self-Hate.

Gregg played Dr. Rebekah McManus. She's divorced and just recently transferred to General Surgery from being a research doctor in the Oncology department, which she left because she had filed sexual harrassment charges against the head of the department and won, leaving her as something of an outcast in the department. She's got a chip on her shoulder because she doesn't trust hospital politics and has to prove that she can cut it (no pun intended) as a surgeon. Her issue is Self-Worth.

The other characters were:

Dr. Paton Cabot, the hospital's Chief of Staff (and Lowell's father). A really nice guy and a brilliant doctor, acts as everyone's dad—and yet, Lowell continually rebels against him.

Dr. Charles Rothstein, the Head of Surgery. He's a really good surgeon, but he's stuck in the role of administrator and is 5 years away from retiring. Still, he prefers the hands-on work and will take over an operation whenever he has the itch.

Dr. Malik Robinson, the hotshot, fresh out of residency. He thinks he can do anything, and loves to show off.

Dr. Vanessa De La Rosa, the ambitious schemer. She'll quote the rules at anyone and report people for the slightest infraction—especially if it moves her up the ladder.

Dr. Jonathan McManus, Rebekah's ex-husband, who also works in the hospital.
We decided to play the pilot, just to get comfortable with the system. I opened the first scene with a patient being rushed to the OR for emergency surgery. Rebekah and Lowell are the doctors on-call, while Dr. Rothstein watches from above. I declared the conflict was whether or not the two doctors saved the patient's life. We all rolled our dice (we're using the 1st edition rules). Gregg lost, and Julie and I tied. We all decided that Rebekah totally screwed up and then pulled back to just watch. Lowell saved the patient, but only because an attending corrected him on something important, making him look like a sucky doctor.

Gregg chose the next scene and suggested it involved Dr. De La Rosa trying to make the two main characters look bad in front of the patient's family. We played the scene out part of the way, then rolled the dice. Gregg lost again, and Julie and I tied again. So, De La Rosa made them look bad, but ended up looking bad herself. Gregg had the highest die roll, so he narrated, but let me jump in with the ending of the scene: after De La Rosa uses her withering scorn on the doctors, the patient's teenage daughter looks at her and says, "Wow! You're a bitch!" And...cut!

Julie called the next scene: Lowell at a strip club, drinking away and wallowing in self-loathing. We all came up with the conflict: Mandy, a cute, smart waitress, who's working there to save up money for med school, sees the good in Lowell and flirts with him. The stakes: if Julie won, Lowell would manage to charm Mandy and get involved with her; if I won, Mandy would lose patience with Lowell's self-pity, and he'd end up going home with some random skeeze. Once again, Julie and I tied, so we decided that Lowell blew his chance with Mandy, but she hadn't completely lost interest in him, and he'd have another chance with her later.

I called the next scene and decided to focus on Rebekah (since the previous scene had focused on Lowell). Her ex asks her in on an Oncology consult. While looking at test results, he starts going on about how she should have stayed in Oncology instead of transferring. Gregg beat my roll this time, and Rebekah successfully blew off her husband and stuck by her decision.

Gregg called the next scene, which was chosen to be the final scene (because Gregg had to get going). It's the next day, and Lowell is operating on a young girl, with the hotshot Dr. Robinson assisting, while the girl's grandfather, one of the hospital's major donors, is watching in the theater with Lowell's father. We decided the conflict was all about if Lowell could be a good enough doctor, and have enough confidence in himself, to realize that he and Robinson were out of their depth on this operation. Julie beat my roll, so while Malik is convinced they can save the girl, Lowell yells at him that they need a more experienced surgeon. Dr. Rothstein is brought in. I narrated the end: the elder Dr. Cabot turns to the donor, smiles and says, "I told you my son is a great doctor."

Boy, it was a really great session, one of the best I've had in a long, long time. We all suggested scene set-ups, conflicts, stakes and narration. Julie and Gregg enthusiastically gave each other fan mail. We all got into the cinematic and dramatic aspects of creating a TV show, and we all got attached to the characters. It all just went really smoothly. Gregg emailed me the next day and said, "I know when a game is good when I'm still thinking about the game the next day. We have to play this again."

[Matt Wilson]

You rule the school, baby. Even if you did enjoy the prequels.