My first attempt: World of Brightness.

[Vittek]

Hello, I'm from Italy and I was planning an M&M game based on Heroes and then BAM! I read PTA and decided we don't really need all the rules in M&M books, since we really really focus on interpretation. So, I'm trying to put down a season of my World of Brightness. Actually, inspiration comes form Clive Barker more than Heroes...

I'd like each player to have two characters, so we have 2 groups of 3 characters each, that will rarely or never interact.

The first 3 characters are siblings:
- Michael, the older, is an attorney (the kind you get when you don't have the mony to pay one, sorry but I don't know the exact terms). He'll learn telekinesis.
- Hayley is 15 and she's still a student. Her power will have something to to with technology
- Alex Edward is 12 and has Asperger Syndrome. He is incredibly good with math and will be able to give life to his pencil drawings.

Their mother died some years ago, after their father run away when he caused a bankrupt (or at leats that's what they know...)

The other 3 characters are FBI agents, but we haven't talked about the actual characters, I think there will be a military veteran, a Fox Mulder-ish one, and a new agent still wet behind the ears.

This is what I had to create the M&M game. Now, with PTA I need to get the issues more straight.
Also, I have to decide if I want to run the show with each episode focused on one of the two groups, or mix-and-match between the six characters. I really need some help about this, but let's see what it coul be like if I focus on one group at a time.

before going to the episode list, I should note there will be a really shadowy nemesis, a lobby called Flat Earth Society, whose goal is to elimitate or eradicate all supernatural beings and objects they can lay their hands on. Sergei, who is a high rank FBI agent, is secretly part of this lobby.


pilot: the 3 FBI agents are sent to Magadon with 2 other colleagues (Sergei and a Red shirt) to investigate a supposed production project wich should be illegal. When they get to the labs they find them almost empty and without electricity. They split up; the red shirt and Sergei find the Nuncio, the Nuncio takes the red shirt, Sergei kills the red shirt. Meanwhile the PCs find a scientist, Berekiah Zarco, who is catatonic (he had a vision of Iad Uroboros when he got the Nuncio). Later the 3 PCs find red shirt's corpse still bathed with Nuncio, and the Nuncio enters them. They lose senses. (this episode will have a really Resident Evil feeling). Alex, the boy with Asperger, wakes up and discovers it was all a dream... but the 3 siblings wake up at 10 AM, and they're really late for school. They don't know why they slept so long, but it will be revealed in later episodes: their father, the creator of the Nuncio, injected them with the remaining Nuncio.

1 - Not sure about it yet, but this episode should develop Hayley or Alex powers.

2 - The FBI agents wake up in an hospital. Sergei tells them all they experienced was an hallucination caused by an ecoterrorist attack to the Magadon building, right before they entered it. Since they could still suffer from side effects, Magadon has kindly offered to estabilish a med lab in FBI HQ, so the agents can get daily check-ups and flebos.
This is obviously a lie form Sergei: the agents where kept under a farmacological coma so that Magadon, now pledged to the Flat Earth Society, could create a drug that inhibits the effects of Nuncio, that will be injected every day by flebo. But the drug has a side-effect: the three agents will see other people with nuncio as they had completely blu eyes (like the Fremen from Dune, let's say). This will be crucial in later episodes to recognize the 3 siblings.
So, episoede 2.
After the initial recap with Sergei, and the few days to rest (but still under Magadon flebos) they will go back to work: the lobby wants to keep an eye on them, so they will work together. Their first case will be that of a woman found in a river: it seems they dried her completely and then the river rehidratated her, so the body is in very bed conditions.
I'm not sure about the rest, but they will have to discover something, but they don't manage to get the killer.

So let's get this straight now. Berekiah Zarco got the Nuncio but was not working on it, so he does't know what it is. He drains life force through the touch of his hands, but his power plays tricks on his mind, so he doesn't even notice he drains life or kills people: he kidnapped a woman he knew was working for Magadon, tied her to a chair, and kept interrogating her even when she was already dead, because he couldn't see the effects of his powers. The problemi is, he is not a 'villain' and didn't want to hurt her, much less kill her, he only wants to know why the world he knew has gone completely mad. When he'll understand that science can't help him, he'll turn to more occult knowledge, trying to understand his vision. So, we need some kind of manhunt, with the FBI agents trying to preempt his next move, but he'll be here at least for a season.

3 - Not sure about it yet, but this episode should develop Hayley or Alex powers (the missing one from episode 1).

4 - Again, the FBI agents search for Berekiah.

5 - Berekiah pays visit to the sons of the man that created the Nuncio, probably at Michael's office, so he can develop his powers, and perhaps a loved one or a secretary could die. In this episode the siblings probably discover that they have been subject to a substance called Nuncio, and that their father has probably something to do with it. Depending on what happes with (and to) Berekiah, he could warn them that the FBI will probably be on their traces soon, and that if they want to live they should leave town soon.

This is where things in my mind get foggy. The FBI agents eventually should get to Berekiah, and (at the same time or later) discover they have Nuncio too, leaving FBI to set things right. The siblings will instead, probably thanks to profetic dreams from Alex, follow their father's trail, who is studying the effects of Nuncio injecting random people with it, and sticking around enough to see what happens.
Also, episode 5 could end the first season, now that I see it written down it doesn't seem that bad.

So... what do you think? what am I missing? I'm working too much without knowing the issues? (remember, we didn't think in terms of PTA yet...)

[Matt Wilson]

Hi Vittek:

Did you buy the italian translation of Primetime Adventures? It's very cool.

When your group plays other games, do you as GM typically decide this much in advance? And is all the information you provided just what you alone came up with?

[Vittek]

A friend (not of my usal gaming group) borrowed me an english copy of Primetime Adventures, but I'll probably get the italian tranlsation soon.

I don't know if I'm planning too much in advance, but I rarely GM, and this is absolutely my first try at a narrativist game, as I've never played nor GMed one.
The information above comes from me except for the character cocepts themselves, including powers: the start of the M&M campaign has been slow and it took many weeks (I mean, a few hours spreaded through many weeks) so I had lots of time to plan a convoluted plot. (BTW, I have not told them my intention to give them two characters each, so the FBI agents have not been flashed out yet.)

Do you think I should start from scratch, now that I'm think about PTA instead of a more old-fashioned system?

[Vittek]

A friend (not of my usal gaming group) borrowed me an english copy of Primetime Adventures

Mmmm he lent it to me, not borrowed XD

[Matt Wilson]

Sorry for the slow response. I'm battling a cold this week. It's why I'm presently awake at 2:00 AM. Stupid coughing.

I would say that Primetime Adventures is great to plan possibilities with, but not certain events. You will also want to know what the characters' issues are, so you can set up the right kinds of conflicts.

Besides, since anyone can have the final say in what happens, your outline won't last long. I don't remember who it was that said "no battle plan survives contact with the enemy," but it's a good analogy for what happens.

Still, I think your series concept sounds fun, and I hope you play it to see what happens.