[PTA Playtest] Mistkatonic

[joshua neff]

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"?

Nope. If Julie said, "The scene will be in my lab, with me doing a spell," all you did was give her some hints as to what could be cool to see spell-wise, in keeping with the feel of the Cthulhu mythos. No outright descriptions of "this is happening" or anything like that. It was, in fact, pretty barebones. Which I don't mind at all, as much as I love color.

I'll second Mike's call for explicit stuff. I'll use an example: take a look at Sorcerer and take a look at Trollbabe. Look at how much is implicit in Sorcerer and how much is explicit in Trollbabe, in terms of who does what and when and how. There's a lot in Sorcerer that only hits you after you've played a few sessions. And there's a lot that Ron thought was obvious but it isn't obvious for everyone--& people frequently ask for a "revised" Sorcerer that spells a lot of stuff out. On the other hand, Trollbabe is much more obvious. It's explicit, it spells everything out. My Life With Master is similarly explicit.

Follow the Trollbabe/MLWM model. Don't assume that people will inherently play one way or the other automatically. Don't assume that players will call for conflict rolls just because there's an option to--make them necessary (as they are in Sorcerer, Trollbabe, HeroQuest, MLWM, etc). Don't assume that producers will do one thing or another--if it's important for them to do, make it necessary for them to do. If the mechanics are optional, if the mechanics don't inherently reward you for using them, then they won't get used. And that would be a shame, because PTA is shaping up to be a really cool game.

[John Harper]

In case you didn't notice, 95% of the PTA text is about the most explicit roleplaying text you can find anywhere. Is it perfect? Not at all. In a few cases (like this "framing" business) it could use more explicit language and rules. Agreed.

However, it's a wee bit condescending to start talking about how a good game text should be explicit like Trollbabe and MLwM when the vast majority of the PTA text is already at least as clearly written as those games, if not better. The introductory chapter alone should be enough to clue you into the fact that Matt already understands that explicit = good. PTA actually explains, in clear, plain language, right up front, what the game is about and what you're trying to accomplish when you play. Very few games manage as much.

Matt is the *last* person that needs some blanket (frankly patronizing) advice about explicit rules writing. What's next? Advice about how you shouldn't assume the reader has played other RPGs? Or how you shouldn't introduce a term without defining it first? Give me a break. Nothing about the (well above average) text of PTA should make you think that some kind of "game design 101" lecture needs to be given in this thread.

Now, are *particular* rules explicit enough? Perhaps not. There are specific elements of the game that need to be honed and explained in a different way. Let's talk about them, specifically. Save the remedial lectures for designs that clearly need them.

[Ian O'Rourke]

All very interesting, I'm still trying to absorb it all ahead of our Playtest (via IRC, and its taking some time to organise regrettably -you know what it's like).

The only comment I've had on the conflict issue from one of the prospective players, and who is very pro-PTA, is what would conflict ever occurr, as surely that is just the producer putting his wants on the scene rather than letting player have his? I realise player/player conflict can occur, he was more focusing on the player/producer conflict.

He seemed to think most of it would play out without conflict occurring, as in such a game with cooperative authorship, the majority of the time the Producer would just go, that's cool, and not call for a conflict.

He thought that was a good thing, and could not grasp where the conflict mechanic would fit in.Not only that, we came to the conclusion that if everyone was in on the PTA social contract side of things, conflict (in the dramatic sense) would be created as everyone would be gunning for it, but it would most likely come about in role-played scenes with no conflict roll (as the interesting outcome would be something everyone would not at and go, yeah, that worked out great, without one side or the other needing to roll to get to that point). I was inclined to agree with him to some degree, but not totally.

It'll be interesting to see how it plays out in our test.

[joshua neff]

John, calm down. Matt asked for playtesting and feedback. Mike and I are offering that. Neither of us are trying to be patronizing or condescending, and I don't think either of us are being patronizing or condescending. And since it's Matt's game that we're offering feedback and suggestions for, I'd prefer you leave the accusations of condescension to him. If he feels we're patronizing him, he can say so.

You may feel PTA is "about the most explicit roleplaying text you can find anywhere," but Mike and I would obviously disagree, since we have serious questions about the rules and their clarity. Now, I may be dense, but Mike's a smart cookie. This thread hasn't cleared up stuff for me. Not yet, anyway. Hopefully, this discussion will result in clarity. Or maybe we're all just talking past each other. Wouldn't be the first time that's happened on the Forge.

Matt is, of course, free to ignore both Mike and me. No skin off my nose if he does. But he asked for playtesting and he asked for feedback. And while I appreciate your desire to back up your friend, Matt can take care of himself. If Matt has a problem with Mike's comments or my comments, he can say something.

[Mike Holmes]

I think the disconnect comes, John, from the text being very explicit in parts, but then refusing to be explicit about other things. I get the sense that, perhaps, Matt thinks it might be better to leave these things vague. I actually disagree that absolutely everything needs to be explicit. In fact, Ron's point about what he calls "Points of Contact" is that sometimes it's better not to state something and let the players figure it out.

My point is that Matt could be doing it correctly, and we could be wrong about needing to be more explicit. All we've done is to state our side of the argument, why it's important in this case, and for this sort of thing, in our experience. I'd be pleasantly surprised to find out that we're wrong, and that Matt has left this ambiguous for some very good reason.

So this is just normal debate. If I've brought up any rudiments unneccessarily, and seemed condescending for having done it, then I apologize. But the intent was just to argue from first principles.

Mike

[John Harper]

You're right, Mike. Well said. I do honestly feel that Josh's response in particular came off as rather patronizing, but I'm willing to admit that I may have overreacted a bit.

I'd appreciate it if you don't play thread-police, Josh. Telling me to "calm down" and then suggesting what I should or should not be posting here is no way to win friends. I call 'em like I see 'em. I'm willing to admit I may have been wrong about your post (as I assume you're willing to admit your post *could have* been seen as a condescending) but I'm not willing to be bullied out of a topic because you think Matt should "take care of himself."

I'm a PTA playtester and am involved in the ongoing development of the game, in addition to being Matt's friend. I'm posting here to help move the discussion forward and generate helpful feedback, not to "defend" Matt from criticism.

[joshua neff]

Oops, I meant to PM John & instead posted something. It really belongs in PM, so...ignore this.

[John Harper]

I don't know *what* turned me into such an asshole in this thread, but I'm over it now. Josh and I PM'ed and everything is cool. We now return you to your regularly-scheduled PTA actual play thread, now bickering free.

[Mike Holmes]

The only comment I've had on the conflict issue from one of the prospective players, and who is very pro-PTA, is what would conflict ever occurr, as surely that is just the producer putting his wants on the scene rather than letting player have his? I realise player/player conflict can occur, he was more focusing on the player/producer conflict.

Could you restate that? Can't make heads or tails of it.

I'm interested in your friend's perception. What does he see as the most important thing about the system as a whole?

Mike

[Ian O'Rourke]

Let's see if I can make it a bit clearer, though I'm conscious I'm speaking second-hand on the issue.

As a player of a prospective playtest, Gods willing, he has read the rules. He likes the game and recognises we have been 50% of the way to PTA for some time in how play our traditional games. But he is not sure how often conflict rolls will really come about.

As an example, if a player decides he wants a scene in which his protagonist tries to romance the a sexy starpilot, and that was fun, and an interesting development for him to succeed at that - why would anyone put in a conflict roll to act as a barrier to that (and have the object of his attentions not reciprocate)?. I realise conflict rolls are not barriers (and conscious of the Forge twisting my words here) but in truth, if everyone that was a great thing to happen, why roll for conflict? Role-play the scene, and the player's protagonist romances the starpilot.

So the issue comes down to the fact that in a group of like-minded souls, all on the same songsheet, pro-actively trying to create a PTA story, etc - his view is, the chances are, the scenes and intentions the players create for their protagonists would likely be quite good, so why involve conflict rolls?

Though I must admit, he is probably on the assumption 90% of conflict rolls would be Producer calls - in which case he then sees it as the player coming up with interesting stuff for his protagonist and then having the Producer challenge it goes another way via a Conflict roll, and hence the Conflict Roll seemed to him to be a strange way for the Producer exert control. After all, if he wants to succeed at romancing the starpilot, or wants to fail at persuading his daughter to forgive him, etc, whatever, why roll for conflict to change that?

I didn't fully agree, but I can see the core of the argument, if you have such a good, cooperative storytelling thing going on, scene by scene, and the players are creating good scenes, with an interesting direction - why throw in the conflict as no one will see the need to call one?

I suppose the essential question was: How often would people need to roll to decide in which direction the story went in any particular scene? His vew was rarely. I could see how it would be more prevailent.

Hence, looking forward to the playtest.

[Matt Wilson]

As an example, if a player decides he wants a scene in which his character tries to romance the a sexy starpilot, and that was fun, and an interesting development for him to succeed at that - why would anyone put in a conflict roll to act as a barrier to that. I realise conflict rolls are not barriers (and conscious of the Forge twisting my words here) but in truth, if everyone that was a great thing to happen, why roll for conflict? Role-play the scene, and the player's protagonist romances the starpilot.

Conflict boil down to this: "does the protagonist get what he/she wants?"

In this case, what does the protagonist want? Sounds like love in return. Will the protagonist get love or not? That's a hell of a conflict. You bet there's a roll.

If you want to freeform, and just agree that stuff happens, you're more than welcome to. You can also do that in D&D (wouldn't it be great if we just killed all the goblins?). On the other hand, you can be playing D&D as the DM and be wanting the characters to win, even while you're rolling critical hits with the mean goblins.

But in the default rules, you ought to be rolling. With a nod to Mike, I've revised the text to explicitly say that it's the producer's job to provide conflicts if the players don't seek it out.

[Ian O'Rourke]

Conflict boil down to this: "does the protagonist get what he/she wants?"

If you want to freeform, and just agree that stuff happens, you're more than welcome to. You can also do that in D&D (wouldn't it be great if we just killed all the goblins?).

But in the default rules, you ought to be rolling. With a nod to Mike, I've revised the text to explicitly say that it's the producer's job to provide conflicts if the players don't seek it out.

Which was how I tried to describe it to him. As I say, this was his interpretation, not so much mine. I still have some doubts due to not actually seeing the game run (which is just the unknown factor, theory not practice thing, at the moment), but I am looking forward to it. The way I see it though, and what he was missing, is PTA is still very much a game, you've just changed the nature of the game.

He was removing all elements of the game, and saw less conflicts actually happening in the game (even though he understood they meant 'what the protagonist wants). I just thought I should mention his initial interpretation on first read through, etc, since we seemed to be focusing on conflicts. Especially since he is a player coming to the game without any Forge knowledge, and mostly experience of 'standard, task resolution systems' with freeform elements smoothing the rules out.

[John Harper]

I had an idea the other day about tweaking conflicts in PTA:

If the player sets the agenda for a scene as 'Plot' then there must be a conflict roll during the scene. In other words, the protag may or may not get what they want, and the dice will tell us which way it goes.

If the agenda is set as 'Character' then there may or may not be a conflict roll, depending on what the players want.

So, players can explore character issues in either a freeform or dice-driven way. But when advancing the plot they must engage in conflicts and roll the dice.

[pete_darby]

My initial feeling was that there should be a conflict roll in each scene: it stems from my view of TV scripting that something should change in each scene, that if the state of play was the same at the end of a scene as at the start, it's filler.

However, I can see that, if that's happening in a scene anyway, in a way that's interesting for all involved, the roll isn't strictly necessary... but I'd probably be, as producer, calling for conflict rolls in most scenes anyway, on the Rolling Stones pinciple: "You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes you might get what you need."

But yeah: some character scenes it could seem dumb to roll a conflict: frex, one player wants his character to confide in another that she was beaten as a child, part of the character's issue.

Conflict roll or not?

On the not side, it's adressing the characters' issue, it "protagonising" in that it's what the character & player want.... but on the roll side, a failed conflict roll can show that the character is in deeper denial than they thought, or the other character doesn't want to hear, or any number of things that both address the issue in there own way, while providing for unseen developments of character and / or plot.

So I'm leaning towards when in doubt, roll & shout.

[Ian O'Rourke]

My initial feeling was that there should be a conflict roll in each scene: it stems from my view of TV scripting that something should change in each scene, that if the state of play was the same at the end of a scene as at the start, it's filler.

This is the theory I was working on as well, but I'm also aware some very successfull shows actually don't have a conflict in every scene - I was watching Buffy, Alias and ER lately and some scenes are just protagonisation as Pete says.

But I agree in principle that most scenes should have a conflict, it's the same in novel writing, etc. It would certainly be true that if you moved to too many scenes having this protagonisation element, and no conflict, things might seem a bit 'weak'. Fun, but not so 'intense'.