[PtA] Reading between Blue Lines (GenCon play)

[Emily Care]

Vincent, your wish is my demand: 

So, it's Sunday night, last night of GenCon.  Allan, Joshua, Ben & I are up in our hotel room in the Embassy Suites.  Obviously we are going to play something.  What? We toss around some ideas. Joshua volunteers to run Mountain Witch, but realizes he doesn't have the energy, and we realize that Allan has never played PtA and we go "Duh, we're gonna play PtA!"   Yay, happy me, I'd only gotten to demo it up until then.

We do the pitch session, Joshua is producer, and we get tangled up right off the bat.

Ben (or somebody): Let's do a comedy, something light. (Oh, yeah, Ben & I were both still coming down off that intense Dogs game the night before. Yup, light fit the bill.)
Joshua:  I dunno, comedy is hard, I know I write it. It takes crafting, and is exacting.  How are we gonna come up with comedy on the fly? 

Now mind you, I had just watched a boatload of friends play the Hinky Hospital game 2 or three nights before.  Their sides & cheeks hurt after playing the game, they laughed so much, so I was not convinced.  I think Joshua made a good point, and I've had this kind of argument about other literary merits of role playing with Ben, but I think there might be something else that's being gotten at when folks compare play of rpgs with written texts.  You don't edit play down to a fine thing fit for others' consumption, but you darn sure can create in play stuff that is satisfying as all get out to the folks at the table.  Or on the floor as in this case.

So, anyway, we ironed it out, compromising on playing out a cartoon. Maybe Josh, came up with that.  Ben suggested his excellent rule addition (or is it in the new rules, either way, it's a must): if you say no to something, you have to make some kind of suggestion. Never just "no", but "no, but what about..." Anyway, I had the next no:  cartoons weren't rocking my world.  What about back-stage in a cartoon? Like those out takes from It's a Bugs Life or whatever that movie was called.  They probably do it in all the dvds of Pixar now. Anyway, that's what lit the fuse.  When Star, Eric & Meg dropped by we incorporated them & Eric picked up one of the characters that we'd already brainstormed. 

Our cast:

Princess Flora (played by Ben) -- The heroine of the disneyesque show we were all part of.  Off the screen she swears and smokes and but inside she is insecure & grappling with issues about self-worth.  We'd later find out that she packs a walloping right hook, too.   
Edge: Paternalistic sexual fantasy
Issue: Appearance 
Nemesis: Victoria, another lead Female character who wants her role

Grimblood (played by Allan) -- The horrific bad guy of the piece.  Off stage though, he was a really thoughtful and considerate fellow, who felt lonely and isolated because everyone judged him by his screen persona. 
Edge: Nice Guy, Change shape (?)
Issue: Misunderstood (I'm paraphrasing here, Allan?)

The Narrator (played by Eric) -- The unseen source of all voice-overs.  He would do the same intros off screen that he presumably did for the show, and nobody quite knew what to make of him, not being able to see him to talk to him and all.  His issues again were all about alienation and misunderstanding. Meg made a comment about how cool his spotlight episode would be and we were all hooked, that was clearly the episode we would play.
Edge: Omnipresent, Booming Voice (?)
Issue: Outcast

Uni (played by Emily) -- The cute animal sidekick.  She was a teacup unicorn that kind of got forgotten & left out a lot.  Her issues were again about self-esteem & respect.  Ironically, Grimblood was the one who ended up being consistently nice to her.  I actually found her hard to get into, but felt reassured that it was okay that she didn't act much, since she was at a 1 that episode.  She came into play when it mattered & as it reflected the Narrator's issues.  All cool.
Edge: Cute, Tiny
Issue: Respect

As we talked about what kinds of characters we'd have, Joshua or somebody joked about there being another character that everybody ignored who played all the extras.  At any rate, it was Josh who hit on having the character types be like castes or classes in the cartoon world, and that the extras were all poorly drawn & pretty much identical. They also don't really get a voice, but just speak in that Peanuts' faux voice: mwah-wah-wah-wah, wah, and so on. It was a funny joke that became central to the plot of the episoded, intertwining and entangled with the Narrator's quest for empowerment & friendship, and highlighting the last two characters, npc's who became way central:

Bud -- The handsome hero of the show.  Who on the screen is stupid and bumbling (think Dudley Do-Right) and who off screen reads texts on metaphysics and philosophy.  He turned out to be the alter-ego of the last character, the animator himself.  A Mary Sue by any other name, but man, this gave rise to some interesting ramifications about the other characters....

And finally,
Judd --  The animator behind the show, who quickly realizes he's lost control of his creations.  We originally named this character Jed, but kept calling it Judd, and ended up swapping it, in part because it highlighted the Bud/Judd interchange, and also as an homage to our man Judd, aka Paka.  : )

Not Feeling the Love
The series was called Blue Lines, after the blue lines artists sketch to ink over, that will not transfer when the inked image is copied.  All the backgrounds were imagined drawn in blue lines. Primary characters got amazing detail, Extras were quickly & poorly drawn, etc.  We began the first scene with the characters coming off the screen. Eric introduces us in his BOOMING VOICE.  They chat a bit and we get a sense of the hardbitten quality of Flora, complaining about how monotonous the show is. Actually they all complain about it: Grimblood wondering why he always has to be mean, and why he's got nothing drawn beneath his shadowy robes. Nothing! He is not fully functional... Then Bud comes through and invites everyone to a poetry reading at a club called Blue Lines, suddenly taking on new connotations for blues, music and poetry. 

Aha, the scene now has a conflict: do the characters invite the Narrator along?  I lost my notes, with how the conflict came out. Eric, did they invite you?  Only Grimblood and Uni go--Flora has a previous engagement--but the Narrator does come, too. Turns out not only is this a counter-culture kind of place, but it's an Extra bar--but first we follow Flora on her date.

Roustabouts Begin
Turns out poor Flora is getting snubbed by the other Leading Lady characters she thought were her friends.  She's supposed to meet up with them, and she sees them hurry into another bar, not realizing they are trying to ditch her.  One of them insults her and the first bar-room brawl (of many) begins.

Back at the Blue Lines jazz club,  Bud is MC'ing the beat poets (roll of the drums and extra poetry behind our words, dun--dun--da-dun-dun, wah...wah-wah wah wahh wahh...)  (I totally thought of Bud as Andy K. in this scene. :)  Uni & Grimblood are there, as is Judd.  Uni & Grimblood chat about the Narrator. They wonder where he lives, and, suddenly, what his name is!  Uni goes and asks Judd what it is.  Judd is condescending to Uni--he never remembers her name ("how can you forget such a stupid name?" Uni thinks), and he tells her that the Narrator probably doesn't.  (Correct me on this if I got that wrong, folks.)  Anyway the get no name, but we spent a while ooc speculating about the land of Narrators, and decide that there is a place where other Narrator voices hang out, just like the cartoon characters are hanging out here...I had this experience of the world continuing to fold out like an origami structure into all kinds of new levels of odd like this. 

Class  Conflict
Ok, after the readings are over,  Flora comes in and a conflict is born.  Will she insult one of the extras? Will there be a fight?  We are all over the place as players: we want there to be a fight, maybe we should have the conflict be about whether she wins or not? No, the question is, what side do the characters come in on?  Bud ends up on the side of the Extras, beginning the arc of plot that runs through the rest of the show.

The next scene introduced an awesome new location, Judd's sketch pad. Turns out he uses that as a spot to talk to his characters, especially his alter-ego Bud.   So, the scene took place between our two NPC's Judd & Bud.  Eric as the Narrator had established that many more incidents of Extra on Character violence had occurred in between, so Judd asks Bud why his characters are going crazy.  Why can't he understand them, and control them?   Allan & Grimblood entered after a bit, crawling out of an inkblot lower on the page.  Much fanmail to Allan for saying that he couldn't get up because he had no legs drawn.

Enter the Narrator
The next scene was a monologue on the part of the Narrator.  We imagined it was a scratchy/blankish scene, with images jumping onto the screen occasionally, sometimes inspired by his words, sometimes not.  Oh, it was like a piece of paper that had been crumpled up and thrown away, flattened again & put on the screen.  The Narrator mused about his position in life and in the world.  About the effects of his words and what his real abilities might be.   Why, what he said, happened!  He could take that power and, make stuff happen! But would he?  That was the conflict: would the Narrator go for it...And he did.  Much fan mail on the side of him doing so. We all wanted it.  The next scene was a follow-up:  The Narrator describes another Leading Lady character breaking her leg and falling madly in love with an Extra. They run away together and elope.  All this is pictured on the screen, in a montage sequence of events. Yes!  The Narrator revels in his new found Pow-ah, and plots and plans...

Anarchy Strikes the Set
So the next scene is back to our merry crew.  It is the closing credits for the "real" show and we see bits of them in situations from past shows.  However, it's not quite right.  The horse is missing from the western scene: Bud & Uni are there on an empty saddle.  The space shuttle with Flora and Bud is caput, and where Grimblood has Flora tied to the tracks for the train to come cut her to pieces, they are waiting, and waiting, and waiting... And over all of this, the credits are creeping down the screen, but there is no one to wipe them off: they are building up, like stacked pieces in Tetris, slowly covering over the whole image on the screen. We never knew how much the Extras and the Narrator were adding to the show.  Finally, Flora swears and shouts "Enough" and walks off the screen.  All the characters beat it.  We speculate about the network producers jumping all over Judd for loss of revenues from Flora's outburst and the various screw-ups. 


Tell 'em Who's Boss
Next scene is back on the sketch pad.  Judd has drawn a business meeting room and the cast of the show march in through a drawn door to confront their maker.  They are furious about what's gone on, and he wants to know what is happening and why.  They wrangle over various aspects of the conflict, getting more and more personal.  Finally, Flora comes out with "And you draw me like your Sister!" (Delivered by Ben, thanks to the inspiration of Star: oh, fanmail-fanmail), bringing Judd's self-reflection and absorption into a new light.  Grimblood pipes in with "Hey, and don't I kind of look like your father?  Judd, I am your father!....." (Oh did Allan really say that or is it just too perfect not to think of now?) Anyway,  as usual with this peaceful lot, a brawl breaks out, Grimblood get BIG and starts throwing grenades & shit.  Then Judd starts trying to erase people (mean sucker!), and they scatter, trying to make it through the door before he wipes them out.  (Judd is an angry and vengeful god).  But this sets the scene for the escalation that hits in the next round.

Wah-Wah-Wah-Wah
So, the setting for the next scene is a building in Extraville, or somewhere in the city where the Extras are congregating. It's a town hall, or a union building or some such.  We've got rows of chairs, filled with concerned looking extras, all shoddily drawn and looking identical. Bud is also in the audience, trying to look inconspicuous but standing out with his oh-so detailed and elaborately drawn self.  On the board at the front of the room is the motto for the meeting, or perhaps the name of the organization. It says:  Wah-Wah-Wah-Wah.  After this was described, we can't play for 10 minutes or so, we are all laughing so hard.   Okay, maybe we can't do gags everytime for comedy, but there is nothing funnier, I've found, than a good game of PtA.  Even the dramas! So, anyway--an older serious looking Extra clutching his brimmed straw hat in his hands raises his hand and is recognized by the speaker at the front of the room.  "Wah, wah, wah-wah-wah. Wah?"  They talk and other Extras nod their heads.  "Wah, wah!"  They settle down again, and Bud raises his hand.  He is recognized and speaks "I think it's a crime how Extras are being treated.  They should be able to hold their heads up..."  A murmur arises around him.  Others stand up and gesture angrily at him. "Wah wah wah!"  Others stand up and speak with more moderation. They shake their heads and shake their open hands before them. "Wah wah-wah-wah wah wah wah."  Another fight breaks out, chairs are thrown.  We cut to the next scene, with Bud shaking himself off in the gutter outside the building.

The Narrator speaks.  "They never couldn't listen to Bud, but could he himself listen?" (Or something like that--sorry, Eric. : )  Bud talks to the Narrator, he listens.  They bond & decide to team up.  Walking off the frame together. The episode ends.  The Narrator's issue is resolved, he is no longer an outcast, but now has a friend. 

It was a funny, amazing time.  Afterwards we kept realizing different levels that the metaphor took us to:  when the Narrator realizes that he makes stuff happen by saying it, it is just like an rpg player realizing that that's what we're doing when we play: we make shit happen.  Seizing the power.  So, anyway there's some small crumb of what made it so good.  I loved seeing Allan play Grimblood, such a good guy trapped in this horrible body.  And Flora caught in this wierd world of appearances, as isolated from others as the Narrator was in his own way. And Eric rocked house with the Narrator. Man. Wow.  Thanks to J for keeping us on track & the issues crackling.  And to Star & Meg for their amazing lightning strike input.

But what did I miss? What stood out for everybody else? 

yours,
Emily

[Judd]

We originally named this character Jed, but kept calling it Judd, and ended up swapping it, in part because it highlighted the Bud/Judd interchange, and also as an homage to our man Judd, aka Paka.  : )

I am honored.

(Judd is an angry and vengeful god).

Indeed.

Great write-up, as always with PTA.

I'm going to run that damned game and soon.  It is a beauty.

[Meguey]

I'm really happy to be included in the his write-up, though I was hardly there. The bits I saw (or heard in wonderful detail) were just fantastic, especially the scene in Grimbloods' apartment, where all he has to offer the guests is one bottle of (something) and lots of poison. Poor guy.

[Ben Lehman]

A couple of corrections:

My recollection is that the "Grimblood holds up his robe" bit was in the scene with he and Uni at the coffee shop.  Everyone kept talking about body parts, and Flora, and speculating whether or not she had anything to go with those nipples (which were clearly visible), but none of them would ever talk about it in front of her, which was an excellent highlight to her Issue.

Also, you must understand that decency prevents Emily from quoting the exact wording of Flora's statements.  Fortunately, I have no such restrictions.  I made it a point never to speak without two pieces of profanity in the sentences, and lots of gesturing with her breasts.  For instance: "Fucking hell, Judd, you draw me like your fucking sister!" while thrusting her chest out into the camera.

I would like to note that it was specifically Flora's mouth that got us cancelled.


Flora was really a blast to play, except that I got worried that I was stealing the spotlight, what with starting a fight in every scene I was in, yelling over all the other characters, and constantly brushing off whatever problems they were having in light of My Own Massive Problems.  Fortunately, Flora wasn't in too many scenes, and was a 2, so it worked out.

The character was an outgrowth of the conversations around the Dogs game that we had played the night before, where Vincent mentioned that male players play female dogs because they want to address The Sexism Issue, and play male characters for other issues.  Later, I said to him that I really did want to play a female character who wasn't a butch and really dug into the stereotypes of women and got her power from them, not the least of which 'cause I've known a lot of women like that, and liked them.

So, enter Princess Flora, who was two stereotypes all rolled into one.  Really, that was all she started out as -- wanting to play a character who was Madonna / Whore all in one body.

But, damn it if I didn't end up really connecting with that girl.  She had trouble, and not just small trouble.  By the end of the episode (and this wasn't even her spotlight), I understood that she hated how she was drawn, but she also loved it, because it was all she had, and it was all that seperated her from the losers (other PCs) around her.  Wow, the body-image politics.

It is really amazing how all of our issues came together.  Essentially, the issue of every character in the game, including the NPCs (extras, Bud, Judd) was one form of self-loathing or another.  And that makes sense.  We were fucking cartoon characters.  Disposable crap produced by a disposable artist with no vision, a man so god-damned lonely that he had to imagine his characters in ordinary life just to have some friends.  (one can presume that he is estranged from his sister).

So that's level one.

Then, we have the racial / labor politics, which Em describes pretty well.  That's level two.

Then, we have the analogy to role-playing games.  We are all people stuck acting out the same story over and over again in different genres.  We don't enjoy it, because it is the same story, and because the guy in charge is frankly an un-creative git.  Then, someone realizes that he has narrative power, that he can take things into his own hands, and then we can use it to express real human issues.

I had a couple of other levels to talk about, but they've escaped my brain.  Of course, this is all post facto analysis, but still...  Powerful stuff.

And I haven't laughed so hard in a long time.

yrs--
--Ben

P.S.  The scene where Grimblood opens his fridge to find only blood and poison was from the "next time on..." which was Grimblood's spotlight.  The show has been cancelled, and we have to rally together to save it.  If we cared.  Which we don't (yet).

[John Harper]

Wow. Just.... wow.

PTA rules. And so do you guys.

[Joshua A.C. Newman]

P.S.  The scene where Grimblood opens his fridge to find only blood and poison was from the "next time on..." which was Grimblood's spotlight.  The show has been cancelled, and we have to rally together to save it.  If we cared.  Which we don't (yet).

Grimblood's apartment was a dank cave that he'd tastefully appointed with Ikea furniture in the hopes that someone would come over and visit. With everyone waiting on his tasteful (but mediocre) Luürni couch, he totters into the kitchen, worry on his grotesque features, knitting his hands in worry for what he will find in his refrigerator: Poison. Poison. Human Blood. Poison. Tears. Cottage cheese (sniffEEUUGH!).

I'm particularly happy for this game. So many funnies. I'm sorry for trying to derail the funny at the beginning.

[Harlequin]

To answer your question, Emily, in that first scene they never did invite the Narrator along - never even realized he was ?there?.  I think it was my and Ben's fanmail draws that tipped it that way, to the tune of like three successes on three cards.  Closing line, booming voice: "(Sigh).  It figures."

In fact, it became an unwritten 'edge' that the Narrator always closes the scene.  Man, was that a powerful tool to keep his Issue at the forefront of everyone's attention - I think this is what really kept Flora's in-your-face-ness merely a character trait and not a spotlight risk.  Oh, the cynicism and alienation that dripped from those simple lines, if I do say so myself...  And then, tellingly, in the second-last scene (the boardroom) the scene was kept "active" for a long pause at the end, everyone IC waiting for the Narrator to come wrap it up... but as we'd already figured out that the last scene would be him and Bud (either connecting or not), and would be occurring simultaneous with this one, the silence dragged, characters got fidgety and weirded-out, and eventually the screen just jerked to black.  Omnipresence had been subsumed to "off dealing with his problems, busy."

Wicked cool stuff.

I totally don't recall Grimblood saying "Judd, I am your father!" but I hereby move it be retroactively edited into all our memories of that scene.  As the Puck says in the Sandman rendition of A Midsummer Night's Dream: "This never happened, yet 'tis true!"  All in favour say AYE!

And I want to say thank you to Matt specifically for this: that I have never, in my life, been required to do an entire scene as a soliloquy before.  To me this was really one of the highlights of the game... because it had a solid conflict (some of our scenes didn't, but this one was huge), it had everyone fully engaged, yet it was just the Narrator monologuing for about ten minutes.  Em's summary of that scene skips the beginning self-doubt bits... "Everybody in this outfit hates their jobs - even the cartoons!  It's all rehashed garbage.  Come to that, my lines are shit too!  What kind of asshole got us into this mess?  Is there no way out?  ... Well, I could just say screw the lines, get up there and say anything I wanted.  It'd mean my job, but it's not like that's such a threat, not with this kind of drivel.  And maybe everybody would get a chance to actually play a role they liked..."  Cue conflict!  Josh fair blew his Budget just to give us something to push against and validate the conflict; with that many Fanmail contributions from all around the table, it was a done deal.

And someone pointed out that the protagonist's Issue should change after their spotlight.  Goodbye, "outcast."  Hello, "abuse of power."  With the best of motives...

- Eric