More shows worth emulating

[Matt Wilson]

I got to tell you, I look forward to playing this game.

I highly recommend that you purchase it, but perhaps I am biased.

Ally McBeal would kick ass in ways that the TV show didn't...

Yeah, I remember watching that show in the first season, and it was definitely issue-rich. If you could do a show that was like that except it didn't have Ally or Billy in it, it would rock.

I'll suggest a British shows from the past:

I'm thinking you could safely bet money that Alan has seen shows that British people have never heard of.

Seems to me that so many shows successfully provide one of the two elements that Primetime Adventures is set up for. You either get great character drama or great suspense/action/mystery. Not often do you get both. I'm thinking that it's easier to layer the latter onto the former than it is to go the other way, but maybe that's stuff for another thread.

[John Harper]

The Sandbaggers is such a PTA show it's not even funny. In some ways, it's the perfect PTA show; even more so than Buffy, since it relies less on an extended continuity. I would love to play Neil Burnside in a PTA series.

MI-5 (or Spooks in the UK) is definitely the spiritual successor to The Sandbaggers. It's also great PTA material, and has a lot in common with Alias -- a show that influenced PTA a lot.

Ooooh. Jack Bristow and Neil Burnside working side-by-side in an Alias/Sandbaggers crossover show! Now we've got something.

[Valamir]

That's an interesting note on CSI John about the character issues being window dressing.  I'm curious as to how often you watch the show, because I actually started that way but went through the reverse.  Initially the appeal of the show was about the cases and the clever way they get solved...but once the novelty of science detectives wore off the real appeal to the show is the amazing character relationships.  Very subtle, but very profound.

Having inadvertantly killed a day watching a CSI marathon a couple weeks ago I can say that for me, it was very much the character issues cycling in and out of the episodes that was more compelling than the cases.  In fact, I think one of the true unheralded elements of the show is the effective choices about which CSI gets matched with which of the two cases going on each episode.  

One of the episodes that sticks out for me was one where a wife was killed boating back home after being out with her lover.  The key character issue was Catherine's bad marriage and her suppressed resentment that Gil didn't tell her that her husband was cheating on her even though he knew.  The lover was the key suspect for the murder and Catherine violated SOP by telling the unsuspecting husband about his wife's infidelity on the grounds that he had a right to know.  Ultimately the husband killed the lover for murdering his wife...unfortuneately the wife's death was then found to have been an accident.

It was Catherine's issues and her relationship with Gil that made that episode compelling.  Much more so than the paint samples and wind diagrams of the science.

I don't know how much thought really goes in to matching character/character issue with case/case issue but if run as a PTA game that's where I think the "show" would be made or broken.

[John Harper]

Well, I think CSI (Green) has *interesting* window dressing. It's a good reason to watch the show, in fact.

We're talking about where to put the focus. CSI has some cool and subtle issues being played out (often using the case as a metaphor the way Buffy uses demons) but they are "in the background" while the process of solving the case is front-and-center.

I think PTA may even address this somewhere in the text. Does the "action" of the episode take center stage or does the relationship/issue stuff dominate the air time? It's a group choice and the ratio will likely ebb and flow within an episode and over the series as a whole, using Screen Presence as a guide.

[Jonas Larson]

I highly recommend that you purchase it, but perhaps I am biased.

Well, one of the other dudes in my group is going to purchase it so I don't really feel that it is necessary for me to buy it too. Otherwise I would buy it right now. Because it really is one of the games (among Sorcerer and My Life With Master) that I want to play the most.

Initially the appeal of the show was about the cases and the clever way they get solved...but once the novelty of science detectives wore off the real appeal to the show is the amazing character relationships. Very subtle, but very profound.

That's quite the insight. I never looked at it that way, but now I see that it's very true, the show wouldn't be at all interesting without the character realtionships, even if they are as you say very subtle. Thanks.

Somebody in this thread mentioned the shield and since then I've seen a good bit into season two. It must be one of the best police shows on TV, and very suitable for PTA. The cases are the platform from wich the character issues take off, so the issues is always in front-and-center as John harper said. And man, I love the characters especially Vic, Shane and Danny. Everbody should take a look at this show, and don't tell me it wouldn't be perfect for this game. The first two seasons is available on DVD

Live well, die old
/Jonas

[Mike Holmes]

I have to agree with John, Ralph, in terms of CSI and PTA. That is, I think it would be cool to have a game that did shows like CSI, L&O, et al. But PTA seems to me to be so centered on the characters issues, that the action becomes window dressing for the issues. That's the key, really. When you can tell that the action of the story is simply there to support the telling of the character's stories, then it's a PTA sorta show.

At least that's my impression.

Mike

[Valamir]

Actually, I agree with you Mike.  But in the case of CSI Vegas (haven't seen the others) I think it is centered on the character issues.  The characters in Vegas could be lifted out of CSI and put into any other professional working environment that met a few basic requirements...1) long hours & high stress, 2) opportunity to get out of the office and into the community, 3) the work being done is both time sensitive and critical in nature.

In fact, those three are pretty much standard TV formula.  We see them in every good Cop drama like NYPD Blue, most Ambulance / Firemen shows, every good Emergency Room drama (where #2 becomes the community coming to the office) etc, and most of the better court room dramas.

CSI Vegas is really nothing more than ER or NYPD Blue for the science geek.  The forensic angle was really just a unique framework (unique in that it hadn't really been seen since Quincy and there's lots of new gadgets to play with since then) to stick the characters into.

The characters are more subtle and less in-your-face than in NYPD blue, but I also think they're more believable as regular people on the job than the often exaggerated characters seen in most dramas.  Its that lack of artificial exaggeration that makes me enjoy CSI alot more than NYPD Blue or the Shield or the Sopranos or other character driven dramas.  I'm also a big fan of Without a Trace whose characters are similiarly not exaggerated.

Now...can you run an effective role playing game with subtle characters?...that's a good question.  Clearly RPGs are easier when the characters are exaggerated almost to the point of caraciture, but I think that's more convenience than requirement.

[Mike Holmes]

Hmm. You've convinced me. Took looking at some actual examples, but you're generally right. Even if facts in CSI don't always get established in order to promote a character issue, one could play it that way at least.

I think that my reaction is partly due to the technical nature of the show. That is, what I can't see people creating are all of the little background technical details. Nobody knows enough to be able to wing that in play. It's Paul's "Big Three" problem all over again. You're either forced to bullshit, or stick with what little you know about the field.

I bring this up because, one of the entertaining things about these shows is the education factor. This is the teensiest part that you can't do with PTA. You either know the material, or it's not getting in. So, from that POV, you can create a "faux" CSI, but not precisely the same thing.

Call it a quibble if you must. The other shows mentioned do not have this problem. Yes, I suppose that MASH might suffer from this ever so slightly, too. But a show like Scrubs does not. There's never any time in that show about doctors that one would have to know anything technical.

Mike

[dunlaing]

I think that my reaction is partly due to the technical nature of the show. That is, what I can't see people creating are all of the little background technical details. Nobody knows enough to be able to wing that in play. It's Paul's "Big Three" problem all over again. You're either forced to bullshit, or stick with what little you know about the field.

GM: "Ok guys, next week we're going to find a body out in the desert. Everyone come to the table with at least one geeky technical detail you find on the internet over the course of the week."

Next week:
PC: "Look at this, his body is mummified, the neck has stretched out. He was probably hanged for a few days somewhere near here..."

GM: "sweet" scribbles furiously

[Mike Holmes]

Not as easy as that. For PTA, it has to be a detail that will create some situation in which a character issue is displayed. The example that convinced me about CSI that I remembered was that Catherine at one point finds these women who are going through anti-aging treatments (which at first seem to be ebola), and the issue of her own appearance and age becomes central.

Further, getting four random facts to work together might not be so easy. Also, I can see this getting you past the initial stages, but later, I think that foundering and BSing will occur.

Lastly, yeah it might work - but then are you again putting focus on some other part of the show? Basically this is a modification to PTA. So to be pedantic about it, it's not PTA, QED.

Would it be fun? Sure, I'd try it. It occurs to me that this might work really well for chat play where players with downtime could do research on the net for when they came back into the next scene.

Mike

[John Harper]

Naw, Mike... it's just color. It adds to the "cool techy show" feeling. The little details that dunlaing suggests don't have to take over the whole show.

Remember that the group is probably rolling conflicts about the investigation in order to narrate these bits in as part of the color of the scene. To have conflict, you have to have stakes. To have stakes, the people at the table have to care about the situation to begin with. So it takes care of itself. If no one cares about the tech details (or the investigation, for that matter) then the conflicts of the episode probably won't touch on them.

Also, it's perfectly okay to have a conflict in PTA that has nothing to do with a character's issue.

[Matt Wilson]

I think the easiest way to do a crime show would be to do something like Vincent & co's Epidemonology. With the supernatural or magic or superscience in the mix, there's no need to worry about genuine forensics and annoying physics. You could set it in the Trek universe, Middle Earth, the Buffyverse, all sorts of places.

If it was in the Trek universe, though, every week the crime would be committed by remodulating the deflector dish, and the victim would be wearing red.

[stingray20166]

If it was in the Trek universe, though, every week the crime would be committed by remodulating the deflector dish, and the victim would be wearing red.

Oh my gawd, CSI: Trek!  That's a nifty idea.  There was that episode where Kirk was being court-martialed for causing the death of a crewman and the crewman was actually alive and hiding on the ship.  All about the characters -- the only "techy" part was the microphone that Bones plugged into a tri-corder.

Throw in a bit of JAG, too.  Could be really cool!

I love this game.  Now to actually play it with someone . . .

[pete_darby]

Mike, how about "everyone bring a factoid about the desert, with a mind to tying into someone's issue."

I mean, everyone knows every character's issue, right? Looks like you'd end up with everyone providing a bang for one character each too... which is no bad thing.

[Mike Holmes]

Mike, how about "everyone bring a factoid about the desert, with a mind to tying into someone's issue."

I mean, everyone knows every character's issue, right? Looks like you'd end up with everyone providing a bang for one character each too... which is no bad thing.

That's basically what I was saying the rule would have to be. And what I'm saying is that it sounds hard. Coming up with just some random interesting fact, might take some time itself. Coming up with one that seemed appropriate somehow seems like it might take a lot of effort.

Hard to say without trying it. So what are you waiting for? Prove me wrong! :-)

In any case, again, my point overall was not that it couldn't be done, just that these shows weren't the primary strength of PTA. Matt's versions would be, if there were any shows like that. Hmmm. Good vs Evil? Nah, no real ensemble.

Mike