[PTA Playtest] Mistkatonic

[Mike Holmes]

We played PTA again last night. The idea was to test the recent changes in the rules. I wasn't sure where your notes on the rules change was, however. Could you send it to me again, or post them here, Matt?

What we did to try to emulate what I believe your idea involved was to simply say that each scene had to have some conflict that at least one player character was involved with. If it was PC v PC, then the characters would roll off; otherwise, it was a roll against the Producer. This worked pretty well. In fact, what happened was that the discussion of the "agenda" for the scene usually got replaced with a discussion of what the conflict was going to be. This had an interesting and, I think, positive effect. It made the scenes really short. What would happen is that we'd come up with the contest, narrate character actions to get up to the point where we had to roll, and then the winner would narrate the rest of the scene for the most part. In about 2.5 hours (actually less I think), we got done 12 scenes, an entire episode.

I've included questions in the description of play below in the context in which they came up.

Here's the setup:

I don't remember if we ever came up with a title. I seem to remember "Miskatonic" being bandied about. But in any case, the concept for the show is basically Cthulhu Now at Miskatonic University in Arkham Mass. Complete with the "Fighting Cephalopod" mascot, but meant to be more creepy than comic like Buffy. Generally more adult (no, not that way). In fact, the decision was made not to allow any students as PCs, and to keep it about the faculty at the university. Also, we said that the show was designed to air on HBO, which said a lot about what was allowed and what wasn't.

We ran a pilot episode previously, but it was cut short. So we decided to say that the pilot was never completed or aired, and so we had to establish everything over again. In doing so, Josh decided to dump his old janitor character for his new one below. The other two characters remained the same from the partial pilot.

Producer - Mike
Dr. Pamela Wilson - Julie
Pam is a professor of biochemistry and an occultist trying to rationalize her science views and her knowledge of the occult.

Professor Will Holloway - Josh
Will is the new history prof, and a rationalist. As such, his issue will be trying to rationalize his view of the world as rational with what he'll discover at Miskatonic.

John Jaworski - Ryan
John is a Delta Green operative who has been assigned to investigate MU. He's posing as a biochemistry teaching assistant and grad student (he has credentials in the area) in order to blend in.

Here's a rundown of the scenes:
Scene 1 - John interviews with Pam in her office
Director (Framer): Mike
Conflict: Julie wants Pam to get that something is up with John; Ryan wants John to remain innocuous.
Outcome: Tie. We decided that Pam is somewhat suspicious, but not too much. Certainly not enough to not hire him.
Question: What's supposed to happen on a tie? The rules don't say anything about it. They are quite common. Yes, the "fact" mechanics help, unless, as in one case, the players all roll no evens. We ruled that neither side got the advantage, and we all worked out what happened together.

Scene 2 - Madeline vamps Will in her office as he comes to see her putatively to get help with paperwork
Director: Josh (his character had a 2 Screen Presence for the episode and the others had 1, so Josh sat to my left, and we went clockwise)
Conflict: Madeline Whately (played by Rose McGowan - I cast all of the NPCs) is another member of the faculty, a contact of Pam's, in fact, who is deep into the occult and actual Mythos - you'll all recognize the last name. As Will is "Attractive" as an Edge, we established in the pilot that she's out to get Will.
Outcome: Can't remember. Didn't seem that important, as it was more to just establish the tension there.
Question: How large is the budget? There are a number of ways to read it. Seems just missing to me. I remembered that you wanted to have only 2 dice for the producer, base, Matt, and went with that. But then it says that the producer can add from one to three dice. Is there a pool (the budget) from which this is supposed to come? Or does the Producer just choose each time? Josh surmised that it meant that there were three dice total, which is what we went with.

Scene 3 - Will finds John in the Library reading up on the history of the University in the school paper, "The Tentacle."
Director: Ryan
Conflict: Having will see that what John was doing was odd.
Outcome: Don't remember, but I don't think Will got anything too useful on John. He ended up offering to help John out with any other history inquiries he wanted to make.
Question: At this point I remembered Fan Mail. We had a discussion on when to award it. Frankly all but the first suggestion in the text seem useless. We decided that if the scene addressed a present character's central issue as decided by all, then it got a point of FM. This still seems a tad problematic in terms of incentives. Can you think of any other way to get FM into play?

Scene 4 - Pam, suspicious of John, uses magic from formulae on chalkboard to see through time and space to spy on John
Director: Julie
Conflict: Having her catch John doing something out of place
Outcome: John won handily, and was narrated as just going over some class prep. Pam is annoyed to not have gotten anywhere.

Scene 5 - Dr. Maximillian Shaw (Julian Sands), professor of Cryptozoology comes by with a specimen for Pam to test, and she calls in her Occultist friend Amanda (Kim Catrall) to help.
Director: Mike
Conflict: Figuring out something about the specimen.
Outcome: Pam won, and I told them that whatever it was it's metabolism was affected heavily by Nitrites, and Amanda remembered something about that in the German version of Unspeakable Cults that she'd read.
Question: Is the producer supposed to make clear what the resolution to a mystery is at the beginning of an episode? I played it more like a traditional RPG and let out info on a need to know basis. Probably wrong? Also, this question occurs to me just now, now during play. Was I, as producer supposed to stay in the scene rotation? Or does the producer only do the first scene? It was useful as producer to be able to frame scenes so that I could keep the episode issue continuing. Otherwise the players only have incentive to address their issues. Given that the episode issue is supposed to be nearly ancillary, this leaves only the Producer to care for it. That is, without me thinking about it, there would have been no episode, and the show would have gone completely serial.

Scene 6 - Will hears something in the hall in the evening and checks it out, bumping into the janitor, Olaf Larsen (didn't cast him, hmmm...Tom Poston?)  
Director: Josh
Conflict: Does Will find something out
Outcome: Will succeeds, and Olaf relates how this is similar to a break in that happened just before the semester started, followed by the discovery of some remains (a gnawed human forearm from the pilot). Further, he discovered that the University had kept the matter quiet, and that Dr. Shaw was heading up a forensic investigation.

Scene 7 - John enters Pam's lab, to poke around
Director: Ryan
Conflict: Can John get in and find something (Pam v John)?
Outcome: John breaks in handily, and discovers the specimen, some of which he takes.

Scene 8 - Pam and Amanda try to get the book from the special reserve room of the library.
Director: Julie
Conflict: Can they get by brusque librarian Edna Semopolis (played by some character actor with a unibrow and the voice of Roz from Monsters, Inc.)?
Outcome: Pam isn't in the history department, so she can't get the book.

Scene 9 - Pam and Amanda track down Will to get him to get the book.
Director: Mike
Conflict: Can Will resist two women in need?
Outcome: Will does not resist, he agrees to get them the book.

Scene 10 - Back at the special reserve, Amanda comes on strong to Will as they obtain the book.
Director: Josh
Conflict: Can Will manage to resist the very forward Amanda?
Outcome: Will does not resist, and it's established that she's hit on him before. Will agrees to a non-date. Sure.

Scene 11 - John gets results of testing the next day faxed back to him.
Director: Ryan
Conflict: Are the results helpful?
Outcome: Yes, we note that his eyes widen, but do not see what he sees. But it's clear that John knows what's going on.

Scene 12 - Pam goes to lab the next day, and reads the book.
Director: Julie
Conflict: Does Pam discover the tampering by John?
Outcome: She does just before reading about how Ghouls gnaw on Niter from Unspeakable Cults, thus associating their cult with the sample.

End


Pretty cool, overall, and I think we'd play again as is. With some work I think it's going to be pretty good. When doing this, at the very least there's the impression that you could make a TV show if nothing else. :-)

Mike

[joshua neff]

Actually, it was Ryan that changed characters. I've always had Will Halloway as a character.

This session was much more enjoyable than the "pilot" session. (In part because when we ran the pilot, I had a truly horrible cold.) Including a conflict to be resolved in each scene made each scene interesting & engaging. Rolling the dice in each & every scene was a definite improvement. Other than that, I don't have anything substantive to add to Mike's post.

[Matt Wilson]

Cool, Mike. Thanks for posting about it here.

First, here's the major changes:

[*]A conflict determines success/failure of the protagonist and who gets to narrate it. It happens when someone participating in the scene wants one to happen, either producer or player.

[*]# of successes determines success/failure, and highest die showing gets narration.

[*]A player whose character is not in the scene can spend fan mail to roll dice (one die per point) on whichever side the player chooses. If that player gets the highest die, he or she gets narration. It's happened a couple times.

[*]On a tie, the tying players each roll another die, and do so until the tie is broken.

[*]Also, this wasn't clear to everyone from the text, so I'll revise it and clarify here: it's always the producer who frames scenes. The player only gets to request agenda, focus and location.[/list:u]
That gives the producer a lot of opportunity to be creative on the fly. I requested a scene where two protagonists were in a hotel trying to find out about another protagonist's doings, so Alan started us out with my guy in disguise as a waiter, and James' guy playing the piano in the lounge.

As to specific questions:

How large is the budget? There are a number of ways to read it. Seems just missing to me. I remembered that you wanted to have only 2 dice for the producer, base, Matt, and went with that. But then it says that the producer can add from one to three dice. Is there a pool (the budget) from which this is supposed to come? Or does the Producer just choose each time? Josh surmised that it meant that there were three dice total, which is what we went with.

Budget is 2x the sum of the protagonists' screen presence scores for that episode. You get 2 dice to start with and can add 1-3 budget per conflict.

At this point I remembered Fan Mail. We had a discussion on when to award it. Frankly all but the first suggestion in the text seem useless.

If I recall, the game I'm in right now has awarded fan mail for 1) having a scene where issue is center, 2) creating a scene that includes a protag of greater screen presence,  3) creating a scene on a personal set, and 4) creating a scene that focuses on the spotlight protagonist. Why useless?

Is the producer supposed to make clear what the resolution to a mystery is at the beginning of an episode?

What do you mean by that? You mean is information kept hidden? I think some information can and should be. Players will have the opportunity to nudge some truths via narration, so you can't keep too much behind your screen without having to edit a lot in play.

Was I, as producer supposed to stay in the scene rotation?

Yes. Alan, in our current game, has done exactly what you describe. He's also created scenes for the protagonist, assigning us agenda, focus and location.

Hope that helps. And thanks again for posting.

[Mike Holmes]

A conflict determines success/failure of the protagonist and who gets to narrate it. It happens when someone participating in the scene wants one to happen, either producer or player.

Hmmm. But then aren't we back to never having to roll? I mean, maybe people will decide to use the mechanics, but maybe they won't. I'm seeing little use of the mechanic in play.

Basically, you haven't even given us the lame "If it's important, roll for it" IIEE, declaration in the text. There's no imperative to roll ever, just player whim.

A player whose character is not in the scene can spend fan mail to roll dice (one die per point) on whichever side the player chooses. If that player gets the highest die, he or she gets narration. It's happened a couple times.

Do they get to narrate facts for dice they roll?

On a tie, the tying players each roll another die, and do so until the tie is broken.

Do you keep counting up odds? That is, if you and I each have one odd, and we roll again, and both get odds again, and then you roll Odd, and I roll even, do I get one fact, or two?

Also, this wasn't clear to everyone from the text, so I'll revise it and clarify here: it's always the producer who frames scenes. The player only gets to request agenda, focus and location.

Uh, that's an ironic seeming statement. To me, setting the agenda, focus, and location is framing. What else is there? I mean in the agenda the player will say, Bob and ted are together in the library, and working out their problem. As GM am I expected to then say, "We find Bob and ted in the library - it's raining outside?" I mean, other than color, what isn't established? I mean, as Producer, I do have NPCs come in, and narrate new events. But I'm not seeing the distinction you're making here.

That gives the producer a lot of opportunity to be creative on the fly. I requested a scene where two protagonists were in a hotel trying to find out about another protagonist's doings, so Alan started us out with my guy in disguise as a waiter, and James' guy playing the piano in the lounge.

Color. As GM I wouldn't be all that exicted about this. I mean, I'd rather leave it to the imagination of the player who's setting the agenda. If it even comes up. Keep in mind that to get as many scenes as we did, there was very little actual narration of anything but character dialog.

Budget is 2x the sum of the protagonists' screen presence scores for that episode. You get 2 dice to start with and can add 1-3 budget per conflict.

Aha, thought it would be something like that. Did I miss this in the text?

If I recall, the game I'm in right now has awarded fan mail for 1) having a scene where issue is center, 2) creating a scene that includes a protag of greater screen presence,  3) creating a scene on a personal set, and 4) creating a scene that focuses on the spotlight protagonist. Why useless?

Basically we went with just number one. Two I don't think is in the book. In any case, there was no lack of players putting other PCs in the scenes. Basically, why would you have to incentivize this. All I'm seeing is free dice for something the players do already. Three is worse. They'll do it every scene, and that'll just be weird. Again, why do you need incentive? If you really did, then I'd think that making it an edge would be a better way to handle it. Four, is that new? If not, then the player with that protagonist is going to always get one, and most other players are going to get one each scene, too.

Overall, the problem that I see is inflation. I'm seeing players with so many FM dice, that A) the edges and contacts don't matter, and B) make the producer unable to compete in any reasonable fashion. I mean, with just criteria one. Each player was getting a point every other scene or so, IIRC (being that more than one was in each scene).

Maybe the problem is that we all were trying to justify why each scene counted as addressing issues. That is, we were far from stingy, despite trying not to let things get out of control.

But further, now I'm seeing a problem with the motif. Yeah, these are metagame points, but if they're Fan Mail, then why would I get one for my character for framing your character into a scene - especially if mine wasn't present, for instance? Basically, if you're going to have it be "Fan Mail" it should work like fan mail as much as is possible in the abstraction.

What do you mean by that? You mean is information kept hidden? I think some information can and should be. Players will have the opportunity to nudge some truths via narration, so you can't keep too much behind your screen without having to edit a lot in play.

Well, that was the problem. They knew that there was some creepy running about, but not what it was. So when the contest was for their character to discover some information about the creepy, they couldn't make it up. they had to ask me to make it up for them.

Another way to go would be for me to lay out what the creature is, or for them to be able to make up whatever, and then I have to adjust (in which case, I'd play like InSpectres, and just not have a plot in mind, actually).

Yes. Alan, in our current game, has done exactly what you describe. He's also created scenes for the protagonist, assigning us agenda, focus and location.

That's a confusing statement. When it was my "turn" do do the agenda, I never did anything but scenes that included the protagonists. Given the type of show that the game is supposed to emulate, would it ever make sense to not have at least one protatonist in each and every scene? There are no "exposition" scenes in many of these shows, and I assumed given the player-character relationship, that it would play out like Law & Order, more than Law & Order: Criminal Intent (where we do get two exposition scenes per show).

Producers don't get fan mail, do they?

Mike

[Matt Wilson]

Hmmm. But then aren't we back to never having to roll? I mean, maybe people will decide to use the mechanics, but maybe they won't. I'm seeing little use of the mechanic in play.

If there's a situation where a protagonist wants something and it's important to the plot or character development, then that's good cause to roll a conflict, and either a player or the producer can call for it. In general, every plot scene is going to have conflict, or how else would it be plot? Character scenes will vary.

I'm thinking there's enough changes that you might want to just download the update. I'm not going to do a good enough job getting them all here. I posted 'em right after you guys played the first time, but you may have missed them.

Do they get to narrate facts for dice they roll?

Facts are gone. History. Conflicts are now sort of like Dust Devils but with dice. Plus my name is also Matt.

Three is worse. They'll do it every scene, and that'll just be weird.

Maybe if they're big losers they will. I've only seen maybe one scene per episode on a protag's personal set. But maybe it's worth putting a 1/ep limit on each one?

Overall, the problem that I see is inflation. I'm seeing players with so many FM dice, that A) the edges and contacts don't matter, and B) make the producer unable to compete in any reasonable fashion. I mean, with just criteria one. Each player was getting a point every other scene or so, IIRC (being that more than one was in each scene).

So maybe another reason for the 1/ep/each option thing. Our group hasn't earned as many. Another playtester said his group averaged 3-5 each per ep.

That's a confusing statement. When it was my "turn" do do the agenda, I never did anything but scenes that included the protagonists. Given the type of show that the game is supposed to emulate, would it ever make sense to not have at least one protatonist in each and every scene? There are no "exposition" scenes in many of these shows, and I assumed given the player-character relationship, that it would play out like Law & Order, more than Law & Order: Criminal Intent (where we do get two exposition scenes per show).

Hey, nobody said you have to do that. But I can think of many episodes of, say, Buffy, where we see only the NPCs and their doings.

As an aside, I think it's interesting, your comment that scenes in your game happened mostly as dialogue.

[Mike Holmes]

It seems like you're ignoring the basics of reward systems. You're expecting players not to pursue rewards, and rewarding for things that seem like they'd happen anyhow. If fan mail isn't a reward, if it's just a resource, then it would be better suited to just being given out at a fixed rate to avoid odd behaviors.


I agree that there's likely to be conflict in each scene. The point is that it's up to the players to identify it so that a roll can occur. Why should I do that if I can just resolve things instead? That is, in most games you see:

GM: Hmm. That's a long leap to the other side. Roll to see if you make it.

In PTA:
Player: Will approaches the chasm and jumps it.

If the player knows what he wants to happen, then he'll just narrate it, and not call for a roll. I mean, if the player is rewarded for certain behaviors with a resource that allows him to win contests for his character, then the idea is that he has an idea of what he wants for the character. So why would he call for a roll in which something else might happen? And the other players aren't playing against him (they get nothing for opposing him), so why should they spoil his fun?

If nobody has an incentive to call for rolls, and nobody has the responsibility to call for rolls, nobody will call for rolls unless two people want opposing things to happen. Given that we determined in the first playtest that these things tended to get ironed out, I don't even see that as causing use. Basically you haven't added anything to the first draft in terms of getting people to use the system.

Now, if it's the producers responsibility, or if you give an incentive to call for a roll, or if you have it as we did where you are required to enumerate the conflict in this manner to get through the scene, then rolls will happen.


One of the reasons that I wouldn't as producer want to do a scene that was just exposition is because then I don't get to employ the mechanics. I mean if there's no PCs, there's nobody to roll against.

If I wanted a game where I could avoid mechanics, then I'd just play freeform.


I did miss the update, so I'll be checking it out.

Mike

[Alan]

Hi Mike,

Some notes about how I've been preparing and running PTA and what I've learned:

1) I only prepare the first scene.  I usually have some idea what the player's opponents will be doing, but I leave that open for development in response to what the players create.  I've discovered that setting the context for the current episode is important, but it's best to insert only a hint of opposition in that first scene.   For example, in one episode I established that the players had a layover on Titan while local authorities process red tape to release a prisoner to them.  It was Mark's spotlight episode and his character had ties on Titan, so I suspected the player would find something for his character to do.  For the other two, I described a few of the local tourist attractions advertised in the port, let the players explore the set and decide on directions for their characters.  Once everybody had a direction, I declared a cut away shot of a mysterious person watching them go their separate ways.  Players improvised the following scenes and I improvised opposition with my sketchy initial idea that someone was after some research information that Mark's character had left at the Titan institute and guided by the players' Next Week Ons.

2) Conflicts.   As you say, our scenes are short and usually involve only one conflict roll.  Myself, I'm not happy with the directions for when to use conflict.  I've developed a feel for what works though.

Some key things to remember about conflicts:

- unless someone declares a conflict, it's the GM who decides the outcome of any proposed actions.
- when someone wins narration, they still have to narrate the results according to the success/failure indicated by the dice.

In this case, it's the GM who watchdogs the tenstion, requiring conflicts at specific moments.

With these in mind, I usually only require a conflict in two cases:
1) the plot might branch one way or another.
2) I see potential for intensifying a character's issue.  

For example, in one scene Dave (Matt) had tracked a serial killer to a food packing plant.  He confronted the shift manager to get in to see the suspect.  I thought of two possible interesting outcomes: either the manager betrays Dave, resulting in the killer ambusing him in a fight - or the manager cooperates.

Dave won the conflict, but I got narration, so I described a cut to Dave ambushing the killer as he clocks in.  Instead of a second roll to resolve a combat, I just declared that Dave captured the guy.  Of course, a quick check showed the clone markers in his DNA - the original was still loose.

(This points out another thing I learned about conflicts: whatever the outcome it's always a good idea to add a plot twist or expansion to the end, to suggest a future direction for the story. The narrator has the power to do this.)

In another example, Ike (James) intercepted the original killer in the middle of attacking a woman.  The killer held the woman hostage.  As Ike is an ex-hit man, angst ridden by the deaths for the past, the primary issue in the conflict was not who gets away - but whether the girl is killed.

3) Scenes.  Yeah, I've noticed that players often end up framing scenes with the information they're required to give.  But since the GM frames scenes, I've taken these as requests.  (I'm heavily influenced by Trollbabe, scene requesting rules of which I really like.)

As for declaring specific conflict - I think we find this cut out some of play.  We found it better to just state the agenda as a general "Dave confronts his ex-wife" and find the specifics of the conflict in play.

Setting Scenes: as GM I've found it really useful to insert "audience revelation" scenes which don't include the players once in a while.  These reveal what the villains are up to and give the players something to work towards.

4) Rewards.  To be honest, I wish my players were pushing for Fan Mail.  It would be helpful if players would remind me that they have earned FM.  

That's what I can think of now.//

[Matt Wilson]

I agree that there's likely to be conflict in each scene. The point is that it's up to the players to identify it so that a roll can occur.

Yes, but "players" includes "producer." In that case it's no different from Trollbabe, Sorcerer, or HeroQuest. Or Dust Devils. Or Paladin. Or the Pool.

If I'm still not explaining it, here's how a PTA conflict would work in a scene:

Brea Mackle is in a seedy bar with Nate, looking for info on some space pirates. Brea's player has requested that it be a character scene. Okay, so this isn't really about the space pirates, then. That's just backdrop. So the Producer needs to think of something personal to Brea. Ah, Brea has a nemesis. Perfect. He says, "Brea's nemesis is here, looks like she and her posse of badass fighter pilots have taken over the place."

If Brea's player says "Brea just ignores them because she has to focus on the mission at hand," the producer can call for a conflict. If Brea's player says "Brea confronts her nemesis and tries to get her to leave the place," the producer can call for a conflict, or maybe Brea's player would. Conflict either way.

Once this conflict is resolved, the narrator can decide whether or not Brea and Nate get the secondary plot info they need. Say it ends up being the confrontation conflict, and Brea's player loses the conflict but wins narration. She says a fight breaks out, and Brea and Nate get thrown in the brig, Brea is humiliated and her nemesis laughs an evil laugh. But guess who's in the brig? Someone who knows something about the pirates.

[Mike Holmes]

I agree that there's likely to be conflict in each scene. The point is that it's up to the players to identify it so that a roll can occur.

Yes, but "players" includes "producer." In that case it's no different from Trollbabe, Sorcerer, or HeroQuest. Or Dust Devils. Or Paladin. Or the Pool.

In all of these games there's a statement that some participant, usually the GM is responsible for coming up with the conflicts, and gives guidelines for what constitutes a suitable conflict to use the rules with. All of these games.

Brea Mackle is in a seedy bar with Nate, looking for info on some space pirates. Brea's player has requested that it be a character scene. Okay, so this isn't really about the space pirates, then. That's just backdrop. So the Producer needs to think of something personal to Brea. Ah, Brea has a nemesis. Perfect. He says, "Brea's nemesis is here, looks like she and her posse of badass fighter pilots have taken over the place."

If Brea's player says "Brea just ignores them because she has to focus on the mission at hand," the producer can call for a conflict. If Brea's player says "Brea confronts her nemesis and tries to get her to leave the place," the producer can call for a conflict, or maybe Brea's player would. Conflict either way.

The operative word in the above description is "can". Nowhere in the Basic Rules Concepts description of the producer, the Producer Section itself, Jobs to Do, or the Glossary does it say that the producer has the responsibility to ensure that the mechanics get used. Things like playing the antagonists, pacing, and final arbiter are mentioned, but nowhere does it say that he's responsible for making sure that conflicts happen. Much less the other players.

What if the producer doesn't want to call for a conflict, despite being able to? What if Brea's player never wants to call for a conflict? What if nobody ever wants to? If it's nobody's responsibility, if there's no incentive, then nobody will do it.

All you have to do in the above paragraph, is change the "can" to "should", put it in the text as an example, and my problem is solved. The imperatives for the producer are to produce conflict, etc, but it doesn't say that he needs to use the system to do so. It only suggest that he "can" if he wants to. This may seem trivial to you, but it's the difference between the mechanics getting used, and getting ignored.

When a situation arises where a protagonist wants something to happen whose success or failure will have significant repercussions, the group resolves it using the conflict rules (see below).

This is as close as I can find to an imperative, but it still seems to suggest that it's just optional. That conflicts only occur because players want them to, not because of any responsibility, or in-game requirement.

The section on conflicts gives examples of "likely" use. I'd also be satisfied if this said that participants have to identify these, and make rolls for them. It's still a judgement call, but it indicates to the people playing that they have a responsibility to find the places to use the rules.

Indeed, if the rules are a good idea at all, then someone should have the responsibility to see that they get used when they should.


Alan, thanks for the notes. Reading the rules, I see that the imperative to establish the problem for the episode is right in the Acts section. In the episode we did, we had way more establishing stuff, and I had the first scene be completely establishing? I'm thinking that this is actually very important for the first episode. Jumping into the problem before knowing the characters a little would be odd. What I'm thinking might be a better rule would be to say that the producer chooses the seating order for the session, and whether play starts with himself or the spotlight character's player. If play starts with himself, the spotlight character's player should be directly on his left. But if the Spotlight player starts, then he can set the table up so that as many scenes as he likes get done before it comes to him.

Those are good ideas for how to decide when to use the resolution, Alan, and I personally would prefer as well to see something like that in the rules as the guideline for when to use conflicts. That said:

- unless someone declares a conflict, it's the GM who decides the outcome of any proposed actions.

Is meaningless to me. I mean, certainly the player doesn't have to say, "Bob attempts to walk across the room." This is an extreme example, but the point is that what constitutes a conflict is going to be a judgement call, and we've been given no guidelines at all other than personal preference. I'd hate to end up playing with the GM who called for rolls every time my character walked across the room.

In any case, if we know it's a conflict, then we use the dice, no? So either the player just narrates what the character is doing, or someone has called for a roll. In no case that I can see, does the Producer get to say what's happened to the character. Right?

Where does it say that the GM "frames scenes" and what would it mean if he did? I'm still not getting it? Did I miss something in the text? What happened in our play is that the player would say that PC A and PC B were in the lab having a conflict about C. What else do we need to know to start the scene? Someone takes the role of director, and says, "Action!" Then the player of PC A says, "Will comes into the room and sees Amanda there." Etc, etc. What "framing" is needed? Yeah, if details are needed as the scene progresses, I as Producer would add them, including NPCs barging in. But I wasn't needed to set the scene. The player who sets the agenda, location, focus, etc, is required to do all of that, already.

As for declaring specific conflict - I think we find this cut out some of play. We found it better to just state the agenda as a general "Dave confronts his ex-wife" and find the specifics of the conflict in play.

That's exactly what we did. We just ruled that this required a die roll automatically. However it looked in playing it out.

as GM I've found it really useful to insert "audience revelation" scenes which don't include the players once in a while. These reveal what the villains are up to and give the players something to work towards.

I get the idea. But, again, given that the players are playing characters, and are not just audience, this makes it different from a TV show. So what we went with emulated those shows that give the viewers only a "character-eye" view of what's going on.

I'm not saying that the other way wouldn't work. Just that the way the game played out, it completely hadn't occured to me to do such a scene.

On the subject of rewards, I agree with you there, too Alan. In that I don't know that there's a lot of impetus to push for fan mail. That is, the players are advocates for the character's stories, not for the characters themsleves. As such, I'm not sure that they care a lot about whether or not their character succeeds at a given conflict. In fact, I think that the real incentive is getting to narrate the result. We linked narration and success together, and that seemed to work fine. Basically participation was linked to protagonist success.


Here are a bunch of notes that I came up with reading through the text:

- I noted that in the "Meanwhile..." subsection of Contributing to a Scene that it says that the producer can cut away at any time, and start a new scene. Does this mean that he gets to set the agenda for the scene? Or that cutting merely ends the scene, and that the new scene has it's agenda set by the next player in the queue?

- I had to read twice to figure it out - since narration determination occurs after any rolloffs occur, there will always be somebody with a highest number. That's ingenious, but not quite clear. That is, you should mention that narration should be determined only after all roll offs. Otherwise people might try to do both readings, and then roll off. I realize that the order you have it listed in would prevent that, but this is the sort of thing that people overlook.

- Why can't the producer save budget from episode to episode? Seems harmless, and matches the reality of a budget better, no?

- How long are commercial breaks? Who declares when they're over? Should players be limited in the number they can call? What about breaks for real life needs? I think that institutionalized breaks are an interesting concept.

Mike

[Matt Wilson]

Hey Mike:

Sounds in general like we're taking the long way to meet in the middle about conflicts.

For example:

All you have to do in the above paragraph, is change the "can" to "should", put it in the text as an example, and my problem is solved.

You're right. My intention is that nearly every scene ought to have a conflict, and that if something is going on that looks like a conflict, speak up. In fact I recall that being a problem in one of the first playtests, where a couple players wanted to just "act out" a social scene rather than bust out the dice. I'll rephrase the text.

I'm nodding along with most of your concerns at this point and taking massive notes which I'll have to run by you offline.

In the episode we did, we had way more establishing stuff, and I had the first scene be completely establishing? I'm thinking that this is actually very important for the first episode. Jumping into the problem before knowing the characters a little would be odd. What I'm thinking might be a better rule would be to say that the producer chooses the seating order for the session, and whether play starts with himself or the spotlight character's player.

The pilot is tricky, and it's partly why I allow for a bunch of rewrites afterward. It's a test run for characters and techniques. The best pilot I experienced was I think in the game John Harper produced. He narrated the first scene with something that had never happened to the protagonists, a death as a result of their actions. The rest of the episode was ripe for character development. Sort of like a group kicker in a way, I guess. Something that changes the characters' lives. Maybe I'll write up some thoughts on it for the text.

By the way, I like the seating idea a lot.

Where does it say that the GM "frames scenes" and what would it mean if he did?

I can't remember off hand if it actually says "frame" or not. It might say "sets scenes" instead. In any case, it's just a simple matter of taking all the pieces of the request and narrating it with lots of TV color ("the lights come up in the library, where we see young Clinton, asleep at a desk, with a little bit of drool spilled out onto his math book.").

I noted that in the "Meanwhile..." subsection of Contributing to a Scene that it says that the producer can cut away at any time, and start a new scene. Does this mean that he gets to set the agenda for the scene? Or that cutting merely ends the scene, and that the new scene has it's agenda set by the next player in the queue?

That text is a little half baked. It should explain better that the idea is to move to the next player in the queue and start that scene as per usual rules, then hop back and forth. It's not going to be applicable all the time.

- I had to read twice to figure it out - since narration determination occurs after any rolloffs occur, there will always be somebody with a highest number. That's ingenious, but not quite clear. That is, you should mention that narration should be determined only after all roll offs. Otherwise people might try to do both readings, and then roll off. I realize that the order you have it listed in would prevent that, but this is the sort of thing that people overlook.

Well, you know, everything in the text makes perfect sense to me. :)

- Why can't the producer save budget from episode to episode? Seems harmless, and matches the reality of a budget better, no?

Budget is a point of frustration for me, what with figuring out the right amount available. The producer's available dice should balance out the players' available dice, including the dice they get from traits. Being able to save unused budget makes a big math headache for me. If you have any suggestions about this, I'm dying to hear them.

- How long are commercial breaks? Who declares when they're over? Should players be limited in the number they can call? What about breaks for real life needs? I think that institutionalized breaks are an interesting concept.

They're supposed to be used for either one, and they tend to be self-policing as far as getting back to the game, at least from what I've seen. I never thought of setting a specific time limit to them. That's a good idea.

[Mike Holmes]

The pilot is tricky, and it's partly why I allow for a bunch of rewrites afterward. It's a test run for characters and techniques.

Remember that this session wasn't the pilot. It was the first episode of a show for which the partial pilot wasn't run. So, in some ways, I suppose that it was like a pilot. But that's my point. If the show doesn't have a pilot, then the first episode should run like one?

I tend to think that even if the show is the one following the pilot that they tend to do more exposition than neccessary in case people didn't catch the pilot.

Budget is a point of frustration for me, what with figuring out the right amount available. The producer's available dice should balance out the players' available dice, including the dice they get from traits. Being able to save unused budget makes a big math headache for me. If you have any suggestions about this, I'm dying to hear them.

Depends on what you mean by "balance." Also it depends a lot on number of conflicts that will occur in an episode. We did precisely 12. Does that seem like it matches your experience?

- How long are commercial breaks? Who declares when they're over? Should players be limited in the number they can call? What about breaks for real life needs? I think that institutionalized breaks are an interesting concept.

I never thought of setting a specific time limit to them. That's a good idea.

Personally, I'm seeing you avoiding giving the Producer duties for some reason. I'd just have the producer determine a time - followed by him stating "Take 5!" or whatever. If players aren't back, play starts without them. :-)

Mike

[John Harper]

I think "How should the series start?" is an excellent topic to cover during the series creation session. It was Meredith that suggested that our season start off with a bang, namely the death of one of the students on campus. We decided as a group that all of the protags were present at the death, but none were sure what had happened. We decided that the first episode (the Pilot) would be a Rashomon-style retelling of the events from different points of view.

This made it very easy for me to start off the Pilot episode. All I had to do was narrate the teaser in which we see the first version of events, then cut to the protags sitting around the kitchen table a few hours later, preparing to have The Talk about the death. I essentially provided color for the opening scene that the group already planned together.

I think it's unfair to dismiss color in scene framing as an minor Producer job. The structural components of that opening teaser had already been set by the players, yes, but by providing the color, I laid the groundwork for lots of show-elements that were used again and again. Such as the footbridge where the death happened, *how* the student died, who witnessed it, and even a possible reason for *why* the student died. This was important stuff and it wasn't already in place as part of the agenda, location, etc.

[Mike Holmes]

OK, what you're calling "framing" there, I'd call narration. I mean, at what point does it stop being framing and become narration? If everything that the producer does in directing the setting and such is framing, then I'm right with you, this is important GM stuff. But framing to me has always meant, "This scene is set in the bar, and Bob and Ed are arguing over politics." Framing implies, in the uses I've seen, just setting up the scene, putting a frame around it. Filling in the scene, painting the picture in the frame, is narration in the parlance that I've always used.

Maybe we can use actual TV terms to straighten this all out. Like I used above, at some point somebody has to become the "director." But, before that happens, there are the writers who decide whats going to happen in the scenes. So, I'm seeing the player playing the actor working with the writer to come up with what should be in the scene in question. These general contents are then handed over to the director, who in our case shows us what the scenery looks like after he says, "action!"

Hmmm. Actually, I'm thinking now that someone else might be better as "cinematographer." Or... well this is a bit disjointed, but do you see where I'm coming from?

BTW, that sounds like a cool pilot. Maybe just a list of suggestions like this for potential frameworks for different kinds of episodes would be cool?

Mike

[John Harper]

Ah... yeah, that example is confusing, Mike, because I was *both* framing the scene AND narrating the action. Sorry I didn't distinguish the two.

To me, "framing" is everything before the Director calls "action!". This includes a whole lot more than "You're in a bar, with Bob and Ed arguing over politics." It is literally *everything* to set the scene before the action starts. This is all color, but it is color that can have a huge impact on how the scene plays out. The Procucer has lots of freedom here to insert her own creativity into the episode. You shouldn't just say, "Okay, you're there. Go."

Consider this framing based on your Bob and Ed scenario above:

"It's open-mic night at Plato's Republic, and Bob is on stage. The usual crowd of politicos, philosophers and wannabes crowd the dark and smoky basement espresso bar, hanging on his every word. He's worked himself up into quite a state and the crowd is in the palm of his hand. All of them, that is, except Ed. Even though he only came to the bar to show support for Bob, he just can't swallow what Bob is laying down. Finally, Ed's had enough. He stands in the middle of the crowd and blurts out his objection..."

Now the scene includes an audience of NPCs that may develop as possible connections and the argument between protags is not a private thing. These details change the feel of the scene considerably.

Now, a good Producer will frame scenes that are appropriate for the tone and feel of the series, but the establishment of that tone and feel comes in large part from how the Producer frames scenes. Very aggressive framing like the above is encouraged. It's the primary way for the Producer to contribute to the series, IMO.

[Mike Holmes]

"It's open-mic night at Plato's Republic, and Bob is on stage. The usual crowd of politicos, philosophers and wannabes crowd the dark and smoky basement espresso bar, hanging on his every word. He's worked himself up into quite a state and the crowd is in the palm of his hand. All of them, that is, except Ed. Even though he only came to the bar to show support for Bob, he just can't swallow what Bob is laying down. Finally, Ed's had enough. He stands in the middle of the crowd and blurts out his objection..."

OK, but now it seems to me that you're stepping on the agenda setter's area. That is, you're altering the focus in subtle ways. What if the player who wanted the scene assumed that it was going to be a private conversation?

Further, I don't like to do that stuff. And don't.

That is, all the "framing" that I'm likely to do is discussing the scene ideas with the player. If all he's said is "Bar" that's good enough for me. Or if it's not, then we'll have discussed it before it's time to go. To the point where once the "framing" is done, all there's left to do is say, "Action!"

To the point, I can't remember doing any of that in the game that we played. None. Nada. Josh, if you're reading, did I do any "framing"?

I think that what's happening here is that you guys are doing a lot of assuming about how people play RPGs. I'm getting this, "Oh, but of course people frame scenes, so this'll happen anyhow..." attitude. I think that's dangerous to make such assumptions.

If you want the producer to do stuff like this, if it's important, then say so in the text. Make that one of his duties, explicitly. What needs to be said, however, to really avoid trouble is to state just what it is that the player doing the agenda, et al, has as a right to expect. That is, how much lattitude does the producer have in interpreting the agenda and framing to adjust it?

What seems simpler to me, what I'd envisioned, is that the Producer is named that because he's not the director. That is, he has certain rights, but that does not include messing with how scenes are portrayed. That's what the director is for. If you assume that the player who is creating the agenda is the director, then what they say goes. All of what you call "framing" is subsumed into agenda, location, focus (can you see how all of your example could be stated in terms of these three things?). And then that proceeds inviolable. Yes, the Producer plays the NPCs, and controls the "Set", so during the scene he'd have a lot of control from that POV, but he wouldn't be able to do anything that would mess with the player's framing.

Intersingly, I note that your example of the most important "framing" was one in which you were also the agenda setter, John. IOW, with my version you'd have had precisely the same amount of control in that scene that you needed to get done what you did. This is why, I assumed, that the Producer goes first.

Mike

Mike