Approaching the mundanity levels of TV drama

[Daniel Solis]

Maybe stabbing a fellow player in the back gives you better opportunities for a promotion (which I would think at least temporarily off-sets stress) but gives the character you stabbed stress. Maybe sharing a whinge about a colleague offloads stress, as does dumping your work on others.

It's cool that this whole "stress is a thing to be avoided" concept can encourage all kinds of character behavior. I would say that if a character concept is "jerk," they'll have an easier time blowing off stress by barking orders and being irritable than cracking jokes with the staff. On the other hand, if the character concept is more "Patch Adams" then they may be more inclined to relieve stress by clowning around a patient's family. And so on... All forms of stress relief are possible, but there are certain ways to do it that character concept decides are more "efficient."

[M. J. Young]

Somne thoughts on the shift structure.  This could be used as very overt staging and scene framing.  Now its a long time since I watched ER or any opf the procedurals, but we could set up a "locker room" scene at the bginning, cut to the on-shift action onece that scene is done, do Lunch as a scene if available, a second on shift, then packing up and getting out.

E. R. personnel usually come in their "scrubs"; the doctors merely put lab coats over their clothes when they arrive. It's O.R. people and isolation treatments that require changing on site. However, there is space for this open and close. It's called Report, and you receive it when you arrive and give it when you leave.

This could work well in the game, too. When the game starts, the NPC's going off duty tell you what you should know. Nurses inform nurses, doctors (may include residents and interns at teaching hospitals) inform doctors. (Others don't get report; they are instructed by the doctors and nurses as to what needs to be done. Doctors and nurses are responsible for the continuity of care, and therefore have to know what's been done before this. Thus when you come in, you get, "Bed 3, this is what's wrong, this is what's been done, we're waiting for these test results, this is the prognosis" in more detail, and when you go out you give the same kind of information to the NPC's coming in. In most care situations, they try to give you the same patients you had yesterday; but this is ER, so if your patient is still in the building, he's been admitted to some other department (usually ICU, CCU, Maternity, or Med/Surg), and the best you can get is, "what happened to Bed 2?" "Operated three hours ago, he's in recovery."

You don't go to lunch together; that's a losing proposition here. You get to go to lunch if 1) someone is there to cover for you and 2) it's quiet enough that they can do without you for half an hour. When you get back, you cover for someone else, but they only get to go if it's still quiet enough that you can do without them.

--M. J. Young

[pete_darby]

A chapter devoted to a rundown of "Dramatic Medical Lingo" would be cool. I think the Buffy RPG did a similar treatment with Buffyspeak.

Oh yeah, all part of the genre toolbox.

Part of the fun of the game would be doing a "character creation" for the hospital itself. What kind of funding does it get? Average staff burnout rate? Most common medical cases? Is the hospital respected? If so, among whom? Is there rivalry between departments?

I hadn't even considered that... and it was only this morning I was musing over why I found the cell creation in ConX less satisfying than chancel creation in AM.

Also heard that the local hospital (where the light of my life works) is to undergo death of a thousand cuts. So the lemons of impending upheaval become the lemonade of a few plot suggestions in an RPG...

EDIT:

I just thought of a name for this game, slap me if it's too cheesy:

STAT!
The Game of Medical Drama

Still less cheesy than the one in my head, but mine includes a description of one of the main characterisatin mechanics.

EDIT2:

And a name for its sister rpg:

Objection!
The Game of Legal Drama

Followed by it's supplement "Sustained!"

[pete_darby]

The focus on one shift tends only to happen in ER (for example) when they're doing the shift from hell episode. Usually, the action covers a couple of shifts, allowing them to do more out of work development.

One problem with using "reduce stress" as a main mechanic is that it eliminates the stock character "the machine" who thrives on stress.

Unless.... every character gets to define "stressors" and "relievers."

In fact, this is getting better than my idea for "ambition" as a motivator, so my horrible name for these games can be consigned to the dustbin of design.

Report (or Handover, as it's called over here) can be played out or abstracted in mechanics so that, whenever knowledge from Report is needed, the GM can supply it (or not, if the character fails his recall rolls).

I can't remember ever seeing report "on screen," if only because a realistic portrayal of handover would cause outrage and questions in parliament ("old girl in bed 2, PFO, wait for her to sober up and send her on her way.")

PFO is a phrase you'll never see on TV... "Pissed, fell over." It won't be in the lexicon.

[pete_darby]

I'm getting a terrible feeling of Deja Vu....

[contracycle]

That just says there's gold in them hills.

Points noted but this is Stat!, not Sim-ER.  So I'm thinking we should exploit those devices rather than reproduce them faithfully.

I watched ER last night, I note tight timing of action.  Both the crises occurred simultaneously to the point of cutting between surgery scenes.  Also there was the cliff-hanger linking the next episode.  I like the latter but am not so sure about the former, seems to me players would conspire to avoid that like the plague.  

The report stuff I think would work best as a discrete phase, because it permits explicit communication.  The methodological distinction between nurses, doctors and others should be played out, I think.  Perhaps the Hill Street Blues briefing section is a better example of the kind of device I'm thinking of, a ritual that starts play built into the mechanics (this idea was tentaivley broached a while back but I forget by whom).

Also, end of shift Report/Handover could be used to bring explicit closure to play, and you do it in character so you can go Bang! with the Cliff-hanger afterwards or during.  This also allows characters from other shifts to make cameos appearances as NPC's, and possibly as replacement characters should the change be needed.  These sorts of dramas include a sort of rolling cast, and so this could do with a stock of NPC's hanging about and in contact with the action as per the stable discussed in the T&T game threads.  I reckon an audience of players familiar with the TV conventions might welcome that sort of thing being in place.

[Comte]

I watched ER last night, I note tight timing of action. Both the crises occurred simultaneously to the point of cutting between surgery scenes. Also there was the cliff-hanger linking the next episode. I like the latter but am not so sure about the former, seems to me players would conspire to avoid that like the plague.

Just a quick random thought.  I don't think that that players would avoid these sorts of situations unless specific mechanic driven penalties were lebveied against them.  For example if you took Call of the Cthullu's fear system modified it for stress and put me in that situation above then I would be sorta irked.  I mean I would racking stress points up the wazoo and my hands would start shaking I'd end up killing some little boy, it would suck.  However if no stress system excisted and a situation like that comes up then I would as a player would scribble that down to cool and clever.  Our play group handled a muliple injury acident swimmingly, or something to that effect.  *shrug* I'm not sure how you are going to aproche the mechanics to this game, but I find that the fewer mechanic punisments for risks the more the players do stuff.  They also seem to except in charecter game world punishments.  These are just some past observances.  Of course no one will really know this answer untill it is play tested.  But I think the dule disaster happening at the same time, with cuts going back and forth from one ER to another is a tool used by many tv shows and movies of all genras.  I would be against restircting this idea from actual game play.

[Daniel Solis]

Unless.... every character gets to define "stressors" and "relievers."

That's what I figured would happen. Every concept has their own stressors and relievers (good terms).

The Machine

The machine lives for the action and chaos of the medical life. Probably has experience in military triage and battlefield medicine. Machines have trouble relating to other people on a social level. Though they may have families of their own, they will always put their personal lives in a distant second priority to their role as protector of life.

Stressors: People interfering in his procedures, including patients' loved ones and even other medical staff. Most social situations including parties for hospital staff. Performing menial medical tasks like checkups and minor stitches.

Relievers: Barking orders at lower-ranking staff.  Ignoring personal life in favor of working someone else's shift. All-nighters.