first thoughts for Not Yet Rated

[ChrisLane]

So, I have an idea for a game that just won't get out of my head. I recently played Primetime Adventures for the first time.  I loved it, but I was left wondering what I could do to make it more one-shot-able.  The more I thought about this, the more I felt like I was drifting towards something that would ideally be a supplement to PtA.  A day later, I was drifting towards something that should probably be its own game.  So, here are my thoughts so far (I'm assuming the reader is familiar with PtA):

Design Goals:
Instead of the greatest TV show never made, it's the greatest movie never made.
Make the definition of Premise and Tone quicker.
Replace the slower, deeper satisfaction of character development with a quicker, shallow layer.
Give something to lower screen presence characters, as they'll never get to their spotlight episode.


To prep for a session, right now I'm thinking that the producer chooses a Premise and Tone.  I realise you lose a lot of PtA's awesome by doing this, but there is a lot less return on that investment in a one shot.  Before the session happens, the producer defines these things, and writes a skeleton of a trailer (think MadLibs, with blanks for character names and descriptions - more on this later.)  The producer also comes up with a list of Edges, Connections, and Issues workable with the Premise and Tone (more than will actually be used - more on this later).  Ideally, the premise and tone are disclosed / advertised ahead of time.  When everybody gets together, they each get dealt cards to use in character creation, and they get the list of Edges, Connections, and Issues.  Going around the table, each player takes a turn picking one of these character components to put up for auction.  The auction only makes one pass around the table, starting to the 'pickers' left, and ending with the 'picker'.  If the 'picker' wins the auction, the card they bid is gone.  If anyone else wins the auction, they give the card they had bid to the 'picker'.  This way, you can auction something you expect to be popular for a later advantage, or you can go last bidding for something you really want, but you give up options later.  Any character can end up with any number of a given component - there is no artificial min or max (though there will be a limit on the total number of options they can win.)  This type of imbalance would get irritating over the course of a TV season, but I think it's quite common in movie characters.  After this process, each character's screen rating = issues + 1.

With characters made, the Producer tweaks the trailer to incorporate names and details from the protagonists.  The trailer replaces the opening scene, which would always be defined by the producer in PtA.  Players are expected to try to work the events of the trailer into the game - but....  Not every scene has to make it in (Reign of Fire's trailer had a really cool looking scene of London burning - it was better than any of the scenes that actually made it in the movie.) The chronological order doesn't have to match (real trailer / movie pairs normally don't.)  The context can be way off what the trailer implies (again - real world blah blah.)  This trailer mechanic does a couple of things.  First, I noticed in PtA that you either tend to either run out of 'this episode' ideas or 'larger character development' ideas and each is a safety net for the other, to keep the game moving.  The trailer gives players something else to focus on - still self contained in a one shot.  Second, the auction is strategic enough to engage people's left brains, and the trailer, when done right, should crank start the right brains.

I have a bunch of other ideas whirring around, but these have risen to the top and hung out for a while.  I wanted to check in here to see how people feel about these issues:

A - How big a turn-off is the producer chosen premise and tone for narritive players?  I realise it's bad - but for one shots, speed is important.

B - Does the character creation auction address the screen presence issue?

C - Is the auction slower than some other method?  (I think starting with a player's second game, it'd be quicker than freeform creation based on my own observations)

D - Will the trailer mechanic add or subtract from overall awesomeness?  (I think playtesting will be more valuable than educated guesses, but I'd still like to hear your thoughts.)

E - Should there be a reward for working in bits of the trailer?  I plan to keep player to player awarded fan mail from PtA, and I'm sure that will get passed when people work them in in creative ways - but I'm considering having the producer pay out from budget when a one-liner's delivered or an NPC is set up to deliver some predicted line.


I'm actually travelling on business now - but I hope to be writing up a playtest rough draft when I get back - any input is appreciated.


Oh - one more thought - for a title, I kinda like 'This Film is not Yet Rated' or just 'Not Yet Rated'... had also thought about 'Coming Soon' or 'Adventures on the Silver Screen' <--- just for the acronym.

[Filip Luszczyk]

A - I'm not sure who exactly you mean as "narrative players", but I don't suppose it's something to worry about. However, I think it could be a good idea to have a number of pre-generated trailers in the game (like: a cliche action movie, an cliche survival horror, a cliche romantic comedy etc.) so that the group could simply pick one and move on. Also, if the process of creating a trailer doesn't require too much time and effort on the Producer's part, he could simply prepare a number of them in advance and let the group choose the best one for a given evening.

B - I'm not sure. Something in it doesn't sound quite right to me, and it's probably related to the imbalance. What if, instead, the Screen Presence was entirely based on scenes? That way you'd simply decide whether you want your Big Moment early on or close to the end. Or, maybe it could be assigned to the scenes dynamically - i.e. everyone has a pool of SPs, and when the scene starts one gets picked (probably the player gets it back if there's no conflict, but otherwise sets his or her level of interest for that particular scene).

C - Actually, I'd expect auction to be too slow, but that depends on how many players there are and how many items are available in total. I can easily see something like that taking even half an hour, plus at least few minutes for fleshing out the characters. Since it's supposed to be a one shot, ideally the prep would take no more than 10-15 minutes, I think. What if the traits were dealt randomly, and the players had an option to trade them?

D - Dunno? Overall awesomeness is largely group-dependent, I suppose.

E - This is tricky, as depending how you deal with it, the overall focus of the game will be different. If the trailer is just a starting point, I'd expect it to create expectations and feed creativity without being constraining. If there are gamey bits attached to it, Producer's prep will probably have more weight and I'd expect a shift from group creativity to following one guy's lead. You'd have GM flags in the system, but no real player flags - possibly introducing the latter in some form would solve the issue, but this again could increase the length of prep during the session.