[PtA Prep] Tough Missionary Business

[Frank T]

Okay, I have played pervy narrativist games before. I have even introduced new players to it. But those were mostly players who had a tendency toward vanilla narrativism anyhow, and a lot of GMing experience. Plus pro-active play philosophies. That was easy.

Now it gets tough. I have this group which I promised to play Primetime Adventures with, to show them "player empowerment, conflict resolution, and narrativism done right". All of them are folk from my German RPG forums whom I have met several times.

Jörg has played a LOT of AD&D. He has also played a lot of Shadowrun. He used to term himself "Powergamer Deluxe". Recently he has turned to 7th Sea. He likes cinematic "style over substance" and has played, even GMed, WuShu, which he seems to enjoy. When I played 7th Sea with him as GM, it hit me as an odd mixture of re-active dramatist play and straight old challenge. As a player, he had no problem taking on a ready-to-play character, emphasizing the role but nonetheless trying to get the best out of him in terms of effectiveness. He is definitely a leader type.

Olli is a friend of Jörg's, who has played AD&D, SR and 7th Sea with him. He was also in the 7th Sea game I had with Jörg. He seemed to have some trouble with describing stunts and other "cool" stuff, but he warmed to it. He tends to make a rush at things, acting first and thinking later. He also tends to act out character dialogue and actions in great detail. Olli has some GM experience, but I haven't played with him as GM. Games he really digs but hasn't played yet (afaik) include Conspiracy X and SLA Industries.

Sara has played some of her ex-boyfriend's homebrewn fantasy RPG/wargame, some Dark Eye (popular German fantasy RPG with very detailed setting, complex rules and a pseudo-concept called "fantastic realism"), some RIFTS, 7th Sea and Vampire. She tends to play peaceful, good-natured female characters without "useful" abilities and will happily spend two hours of gaming just exploring a foreign city and chatting with random NPCs. No GM experience here.

Florian is Sara's boyfriend. I haven't played with him yet, but from his posts at the forums and how he talks about roleplaying, he seems to like rules, setting splatbooks and Funny Mishaps Caused By Fumbled Dice Rolls. He has some GM experience, but seems to have played more.

We will probably do this on a weekend in April, spending Friday evening and the whole Saturday, maybe even Sunday morning.

Any suggestions as to how I should handle this? Big DOs and DON'Ts? Good ways to start? Any reasons why I should take a different game, rather than PtA?

- Frank

[Danny_K]

If everybody likes Westerns, Dogs in the Vineyard might be a good choice too, and the intellectual leap isn't quite so big.  

My guesses at the difficulty your players may have:

Jorg is going to feel a little naked without having rules to use in his favor... once he figures out how to use his Edges, personal sets, and fan mail to his advantage, he should get going.  He may end up pushing some of the other players around a bit, since you say he has a forceful personality.  

Olli sounds ripe for the game.

Sara may have some difficulty with the fact that social conflicts are rolled too, if she's used to freeform talky play for everything but combat.  Also, she may feel uncomfortable with agressive scene framing and focused scenes, if she really enjoys the Sim exploration.  

Florian -- hard to tell.  

Are you planning to start with some rough concept for a show, or completely make it up as a group?

[TonyLB]

My experience would lead me to worry most about Sara.  It sounds (though I may be projecting) as if she is fully committed to avoiding conflict.

Avoiding conflict is not a recipe for success or enjoyment in most narrativist games.

Frankly, I'd say straight out "I'm not exactly sure how to present a conflict that you'll really be interested in treating as a conflict, rather than trying to defuse.  Can you give me some hints for how to better serve you in this regard?"