More Questions

[Lisa Padol]

Okay, I emailed the write up of the pilot ep of Keruton to the players, and we'll try a session tomorrow, assuming everyone shows. Avram wants to make sure we do it with Matt, saying that 4 players should make the fanmail flow work better.

-Lisa

[Lisa Padol]

Hm. We had a session of Keruton yesterday. Beth, Avram, and Josh preferred the way the pilot ran, not because of the mechanics, but because of the feel and the flow. I was more comfortable with the way this session ran, but agree that there were several bumps. Gonna send an email around and see if I can get from them

-- what worked in the pilot for them
-- what didn't work in the pilot for them
-- what worked this session for them
-- what didn't work this session for them

Got an idea of some of it already, and I think some of it will be better the next time around, just because we're more familiar with how things should run. Fr'ex, one thing that really annoyed Josh was that I kept going over things for every combat. That is, first I'd write down what was at stake for everyone, and what traits were being used, and then, after the combat, I'd go over this again, along with adding who'd gotten and who hadn't gotten their stakes. I agree that this is excessive. Next time, I expect I will still go over it the first time -- people need to declare stakes, and I want to write them down, as it helps in case of questions and for write ups. But, I'll resist the urge to go over it all again, unless whoever is narrating asks for a refresher.

Matt Stevens, our fifth, didn't really find the game to his taste. No harm, no foul -- we knew this might happen, and I really like the unofficial Also Starring rules to cover this sort of thing. He may give it another try, or he may not . 'Tsall good.

I also think that the Next Week On Keruton statements were more focused than last time, and that, in turn, will make the next session more focused. The bit I put in after the pilot may well have been piling up too much stuff, though it may also have been a useful hole card when the plot got too convoluted. I could argue it either way. But, the one I put in this time got a reaction of, "Yes! That's good." from the players, so maybe I'm starting to file off some of my bumps as well.

I'll post the write up of the pilot session to the Actual Play group asap.

-Lisa

[avram]

The obvious thing that didn't work this past session: Too damn many twists. In the pilot, we had the one twist, and that worked fine. This time we had to write off one whole branch of the plot, handing it off to an NPC to solve. I think the problem was the decision to have Victor be kidnapped; that required us to have another group involved, and needed an extra resolution.

I also noticed that at one point early in the game, I wanted to award some fan mail, and there wasn't any in the bowl. I remember that our first conflict only had two budget behind it; that's probably why. The game may work better opening with a bang (in the non-jargon sense). At the start of the episode, everyone's traits are unchecked, and some players have leftover fan mail, so if you can start off with something dramatic enough to get everyone excited, everybody should be able to respond to a big conflict, and that'd get those chips in the fan mail pool. How much budget was behind the fight with the takoyaki vendor that opened the pilot?

As far as writing down stakes goes, I noticed you seemed to be writing down every word exactly. Things would go faster if you just jotted down some keywords.

Yes, your having specified that Farad would show up, getting out of a plane, did lock us into having a scene at the airport (which worked), and mandated that Farad would show up when we were at the airport (which seemed a bit crowded). Have you noticed that my "next week on" bits are entirely dialog, without setting specified? That frees me up a lot. If you'd left out the bit about the airplane, you could have inserted that scene into more settings, even having it take place over a video-phone link.

[Lisa Padol]

The obvious thing that didn't work this past session: Too damn many twists. In the pilot, we had the one twist, and that worked fine. This time we had to write off one whole branch of the plot, handing it off to an NPC to solve. I think the problem was the decision to have Victor be kidnapped; that required us to have another group involved, and needed an extra resolution.

Agreed. The whole point of Keruton PTA is to have discreet episodes, and that means being careful with the plot twists. It sort of snowballed -- the stakes were set, iirc, so that the PCs could lose Victor for that conflict, which meant he shouldn't get killed. We'd already established that the original bad guy wanted to kill him, and it didn't seem to make sense that his goons would go for dragging Victor off to be dramatically saved. I don't want utterly idiotic bad guys. So, it had to be someone else.

That said "daemon" to me, and, in retrospect, I might have been better going with seelie sidhe -- add one scene in a weird sidhe dimension, and back to the primary rescue, as opposed to a bunch of scenes, however cool the airplane. But, of course, once folks thought it might be the seelie, I was even more gung ho on it being the daemons. Still might have made it work with quicker thinking and weaving, eg, yes, it's primary thug goons, but one is possessed by daemon, or Victor is, and that's a final twist, after the rescue of Adamasu.

I also noticed that at one point early in the game, I wanted to award some fan mail, and there wasn't any in the bowl. I remember that our first conflict only had two budget behind it; that's probably why. The game may work better opening with a bang (in the non-jargon sense). At the start of the episode, everyone's traits are unchecked, and some players have leftover fan mail, so if you can start off with something dramatic enough to get everyone excited, everybody should be able to respond to a big conflict, and that'd get those chips in the fan mail pool. How much budget was behind the fight with the takoyaki vendor that opened the pilot?

I don't recall. We were also playing with the wrong rules, so I probably used more budget overall -- I had scads left over this time. I'm still trying to figure out how to gague the amount of budget I use on any given conflict. Did you notice that ,this session, Beth tended to push for me to use less while you tended to push for me to use more?

As far as writing down stakes goes, I noticed you seemed to be writing down every word exactly. Things would go faster if you just jotted down some keywords.

Mm, we'll see. I am finding the written record so danged useful.

Yes, your having specified that Farad would show up, getting out of a plane, did lock us into having a scene at the airport (which worked), and mandated that Farad would show up when we were at the airport (which seemed a bit crowded). Have you noticed that my "next week on" bits are entirely dialog, without setting specified? That frees me up a lot. If you'd left out the bit about the airplane, you could have inserted that scene into more settings, even having it take place over a video-phone link.

I am not sure how much it is cheating to do dialogue only in a game where the idea is to simulate tv, and, in this case, tv's coming attractions. But, yes, less is more, vague is good. This time, okay, I still had a setting -- some kind of civil service office, maybe with lots of banks of dials and things, but very tied in to the spotlight ep, and very fungible. A far cry from This Famous NPC shows up in This Type of Location.

Thanks. This is very helpful.

-Lisa

[avram]

It sort of snowballed -- the stakes were set, iirc, so that the PCs could lose Victor for that conflict, which meant he shouldn't get killed. We'd already established that the original bad guy wanted to kill him, and it didn't seem to make sense that his goons would go for dragging Victor off to be dramatically saved. I don't want utterly idiotic bad guys. So, it had to be someone else.

We could have set up the conflict so that we knew we were going to win the fight, but left open the possibility for Victor to be injured. That would let players have stakes like "I want to keep Victor from being hurt" without letting him get killed.

[Lisa Padol]

We could have set up the conflict so that we knew we were going to win the fight, but left open the possibility for Victor to be injured. That would let players have stakes like "I want to keep Victor from being hurt" without letting him get killed.

Yes, that would have worked. It gets back to setting the stakes correctly, and narrative choices.

Next session, I'm hoping that the focus will help. I mean, we practically know the plot! (Details to follow when I get my write up of this session done. Write up of the pilot ep is on the Actual Play forum.)

-Lisa