[PtA] Scope of Narration, Scene Requests, and other questions

[Darren Hill]

In our recent play, we experienced a few problems. The game was still fun, but questions were raised.

Scene Requests: how much authority do the players have here? Can they call for a scene in such a way that it creates in-game facts?
For example, we had a player request a scene in which he discovered a group of marines were actually traitors. Is this kosher?

Transparancy of Plot: does the Producer have authority to declare - "these details are true - your narration must build on this." For example, in Dust Devils there is the adventure: The Hanged Man, which the GM is expected to let the players read before play begins. So they know the full backstory, and in play decide what the story is in response to that. Is this kind of thing okay in PtA, or is the GM expected to leave most everything open for collaborative creation in play?

Scope of Narration: the person who narrates a conflict has to incorporate the various wins and losses of stakes as determined by the draw, but how much can he add on top of that?

Scene Requests 2: one thing we found was that many scenes seemed to lead directly to an obvious conflict. So the player would request a scene, stating certain things. Then the Producer would basically set the scene and just repeat that stuff. And we’d do a conflict. Nearly all of our scenes were like that, and the producer's scene-setting was superfluous. Are we doing something wrong? How do I make the producer's role a bit meatier here?
I know this question has come up before - and I suspect that the way some groups end up letting players frame scenes, rather than the Producer, is a symptom of this. I'm looking for advice on how to do it 'properly' and avoid drifting into 'players frame scenes'.

Collaboration or Buck Stops Here? One of our conflicts was player v player, in which one player wanted to kill a bunch of prisoners and another wanted to keep them alive to be handed over for to the law. If the killer won narration, he could have described the other giving in and joining in - that didn't happen, but it strikes me that it could have been highly unsatisfactory result for that player. So, should conflicts with unpalatable stakes be off-limits? Should players agree before the cards are drawn that certain conflict outcomes can't happen? Kind of like the trollbabe Fair & Clear stage.

Fan Mail anecdote: Not a question, but an anecdote. At one point, one of the players said something like, "I bribe him with a fan mail so he can spend it on me." (This was the player who was suspicious of Fan Mail when he first heard about it.) I flat out refused to allow that - and read out again the passage in the book about fan mail. But it was funny in an exasperating way - if a GM had been so blatantly self-serving in the way he awarded experience points, that player would have been first to complain.

Final Conflict: the final conflict of our session was pretty complex. The players had a prisoner who had threatened the survival of a colony. Two players wanted her taken back for justice, another wanted her executed, another wanted her handed over to the colonists whose lives her plot had threatened. So far so good - they all rolled against the Producer. But if they all succeeded, they couldn't all get their stakes - what happens here? If the players compared their successes against each other, it would be easy.

As an added complication, a fifth player (call him Gary) wanted to help the two who wanted to take her back for justice, so that she wasn't handed over to the colonists or executed, but at the first opportunity would secretly help her escape.
Should I have rolled this intention into the single conflict or done it as a separate conflict afterwards?
How do I handle this kind of nightmare?

[Matt Wilson]

Whoa. Them's a lot of questions. I'll try to hack at them one by one.

Scene Requests: how much authority do the players have here? Can they call for a scene in such a way that it creates in-game facts?
For example, we had a player request a scene in which he discovered a group of marines were actually traitors. Is this kosher?

Well, not quite. You've hit upon a tricky gray area. Agenda states what the protagonists are up to. Saying "the agenda is that we discover that they're traitors" sounds like a description of the outcome of the scene, which you're not allowed to do. Better is to say "the agenda is we're looking for evidence that they're traitors." That approach makes for a nudge rather than a shove. There's a few different options for conflict (like "hey, what are you doing snooping around"), and the narration person can wrap up with, "oh, and you find some evidence that they're traitors."

Transparancy of Plot: does the Producer have authority to declare - "these details are true - your narration must build on this." For example, in Dust Devils there is the adventure: The Hanged Man, which the GM is expected to let the players read before play begins. So they know the full backstory, and in play decide what the story is in response to that. Is this kind of thing okay in PtA, or is the GM expected to leave most everything open for collaborative creation in play?

Whatever you introduce into play as producer is fact. And the producer is the only one, aside from conflict narration, who has control over things that are not the protagonists. It's nice to have some prep, I think, but you'll want to be able to be fast and loose to account for the crazy stuff that players come up with.

Scope of Narration: the person who narrates a conflict has to incorporate the various wins and losses of stakes as determined by the draw, but how much can he add on top of that?

Anything that relates in some believable way to the stakes of the immediate conflict or that's relevant to the declared agenda. Use the reactions of the players as a thermometer, but in general, adding things like "and then the next day my protagonist wins the lottery" is out of scope.

Scene Requests 2: one thing we found was that many scenes seemed to lead directly to an obvious conflict. So the player would request a scene, stating certain things. Then the Producer would basically set the scene and just repeat that stuff. And we’d do a conflict. Nearly all of our scenes were like that, and the producer's scene-setting was superfluous. Are we doing something wrong? How do I make the producer's role a bit meatier here?

I know this question has come up before - and I suspect that the way some groups end up letting players frame scenes, rather than the Producer, is a symptom of this. I'm looking for advice on how to do it 'properly' and avoid drifting into 'players frame scenes'.

Here's what a scene request should look like: "It's a plot scene, in the library, and the agenda is we're looking for clues." See how nice and tidy that is? If they start embellishing upon that, hit them with a spatula.

Collaboration or Buck Stops Here? One of our conflicts was player v player, in which one player wanted to kill a bunch of prisoners and another wanted to keep them alive to be handed over for to the law. If the killer won narration, he could have described the other giving in and joining in - that didn't happen, but it strikes me that it could have been highly unsatisfactory result for that player. So, should conflicts with unpalatable stakes be off-limits? Should players agree before the cards are drawn that certain conflict outcomes can't happen? Kind of like the trollbabe Fair & Clear stage.

Fix your stakes. Make them about the protagonists, and not about the scene. In that conflict you describe above, there's no way for both protagonists to get what they want, and there should be.

Fan Mail anecdote: Not a question, but an anecdote. At one point, one of the players said something like, "I bribe him with a fan mail so he can spend it on me." (This was the player who was suspicious of Fan Mail when he first heard about it.) I flat out refused to allow that - and read out again the passage in the book about fan mail. But it was funny in an exasperating way - if a GM had been so blatantly self-serving in the way he awarded experience points, that player would have been first to complain.

See above comment re: spatula.

Final Conflict: the final conflict of our session was pretty complex. The players had a prisoner who had threatened the survival of a colony. Two players wanted her taken back for justice, another wanted her executed, another wanted her handed over to the colonists whose lives her plot had threatened. So far so good - they all rolled against the Producer. But if they all succeeded, they couldn't all get their stakes - what happens here? If the players compared their successes against each other, it would be easy.

Yep, it's all about getting the stakes right. Look at the protagonists' issues and find stakes that relate if you can. What's the deal with the "I want to do a lot of killing" protagonist? Is there some kind of anger-related issue?

As an added complication, a fifth player (call him Gary) wanted to help the two who wanted to take her back for justice, so that she wasn't handed over to the colonists or executed, but at the first opportunity would secretly help her escape.
Should I have rolled this intention into the single conflict or done it as a separate conflict afterwards?
How do I handle this kind of nightmare?

What's that protagonist's issue? Gimme all the protagonists' issues, and I'll give you some ideas for stakes.

[Darren Hill]

The characters are described in the first post, here: http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=16722.0, though there's not much actual detail on their issues there. Here's a bit more detail:

The two who wanted to take the villain back for justice:
Captain Hanina Parion: This is straightforward. She's basically insecure about her leadership abilities, at least in part because of her privileged background.
Engineer Brent: He was raised as part of a clone family, and certain expectations were placed upon him, but he was always a bit of a misfit, never really fitting in anywhere. He wants to be accepted, to make a family of his own - can he make a life for himself outside the protective creche?
The one who wanted to kill, kill, kill:
Security Officer Nathan: He has struggled against authority all of his life, so he wants the freedom to do whatever he wants, whenever he wants. Basically, he needs to grow up - balance necessary authority/responsibility v individual rights & freedoms. (He's also a veteran ex-marine type, and so killing enemy combatants if they pose a threat is not hard for him - he's not actually portrayed as bloodthirsty, just expedient.)
The one who wanted to hand her over to the colonists:
Jack the Pilot: He's a hotshot pilot, and it has led to great things for him. But he was recently accused of cheating in a yacht race, and lost most of the respect he had gained. Now he wants to prove that he is more than just a pilot - that there is more to him than just that. Incidentally, this character was also raised in the region on a back-to-basics colony, so he had strong sympathies with the colonists.
The one who wanted to appear to help the captain, while helping the captive escape:
Alex the Manipulative Medic: He's an idealist. He was born to greatness (a very powerful family), but rejected the corruption that went with it, and is on a secret and grandiose (megalomaniac) crusade to make the universe a better place. How far will he go, what price will he pay?

Incidentally, Alex was helping the villainess here because he fancied her, and was attracted to her scheming nature - a kindred spirit, and a worthy adversary.

Have I given enough information?

On your earlier answers: yes, I would have liked to have a spatula to hand at one point. You said:

Fix your stakes. Make them about the protagonists, and not about the scene. In that conflict you describe above, there's no way for both protagonists to get what they want, and there should be.

I'm not sure how to do that. In that scene where one wanted to kill the captives and the other wanted them to live, how should I have handled that? Thinking of stakes the PtA way is hard for me - I can't even begin to think how that scene could have gone differently.
(Note: Nathan's player won, and narrated the death of the prisoners in a way that didn't compromise the other character, so it turned out okay - in that instance. But if I don't figure out how to set stakes the PtA way, that kind of situation will keep cropping up.)

[Lisa Padol]

Scene Requests 2: one thing we found was that many scenes seemed to lead directly to an obvious conflict. So the player would request a scene, stating certain things. Then the Producer would basically set the scene and just repeat that stuff. And we’d do a conflict. Nearly all of our scenes were like that, and the producer's scene-setting was superfluous. Are we doing something wrong? How do I make the producer's role a bit meatier here?
I know this question has come up before - and I suspect that the way some groups end up letting players frame scenes, rather than the Producer, is a symptom of this. I'm looking for advice on how to do it 'properly' and avoid drifting into 'players frame scenes'.

I had this problem, too. There are, I think, three reasons for it.

1. We didn't realize that the person setting the scene should be pretty much hands-off after saying, "Location X, Plot/Character, General Agenda".

2. Exactly what an agenda should encompass was not, and may still not be clear to us.

3. Possibly a subcategory of 2. If things are too vague, that is, if you've got the hands-off approach, this is when the players and producer may look around and go, "Um, well, we know what the conflict should logically be. We don't know anything else, and no ideas are springing to mind. Okay, go conflict. Flip those cards." This is a problem because it loses the meat and potatoes of the game, the actual interaction. The mechanics are there to assist, not replace it, correct?

So yeah, two basic issues: Overdetermination (get out the spatula) and No Idea What to Do Except Flip the Cards.

-Lisa

[Lisa Padol]

Hm, not sure how to make this work with what I just said, but part of the way out, I think, is to remember that this should be a show everyone would watch. So, when the scenes don't click, maybe ask, "What kind of scene would make me watch this show? What do we do to get that kind of scene?"

Does that make sense?

-Lisa

[iago]

On your earlier answers: yes, I would have liked to have a spatula to hand at one point. You said:

Fix your stakes. Make them about the protagonists, and not about the scene. In that conflict you describe above, there's no way for both protagonists to get what they want, and there should be.

I'm not sure how to do that. In that scene where one wanted to kill the captives and the other wanted them to live, how should I have handled that? Thinking of stakes the PtA way is hard for me - I can't even begin to think how that scene could have gone differently.
(Note: Nathan's player won, and narrated the death of the prisoners in a way that didn't compromise the other character, so it turned out okay - in that instance. But if I don't figure out how to set stakes the PtA way, that kind of situation will keep cropping up.)

Honestly, I'd go to the point -- in all due respect to Matt -- of saying "Fix your stakes" is the wrong answer to the concern.  If stakes-in-opposition are not valid in Primetime Adventures, then the game fails its goal of creating television stories -- even, specifically, television stories I want to watch.  In the shows I watch, characters can and do have conflicting goals and stakes and sometimes, despite doing everything right, don't achieve those goals.  If PTA demands that the stakes be fixed so that these sorts of situations don't arise, then it's ruling out situations I find interesting.

What I'm more interested in here, then, is not "how do I fix the stakes?" -- I'm interested in "given that these stakes are as they are and in that are inviolate and immutable, how do I best manage the resulting conflict if there are multiple, contradictory successes?"

Moving the focus to fixing the stakes -- and fixing them in a way that's based on the issues of the characters involved -- only moves the locus on the problem, it doesn't remove it.  What if the issues themselves are at loggerheads?

[Rob Donoghue]

(Behold th ecurse of Fred and I haveing very similar online times.  Or possibly being the same person)

Ok, I'm still scratching my head.  More or less on a dare from Fred, I intend to be as rigorously by the book as I can manage next time i try, and this exchange is making it clear that I simply do not unerstand how to run things by the book when player's goals are directly in conflict.

I could probably find even better examples, but for sake of commonality, I'm goign to turn to the book, and the conflict with Roxy and Billy on page 60+.

Now, their stakes (Impress her friends vs Impress his father) are not completely at odds, but the framing of the scene makes it clear that they have been put at odds by the conflict of whether Roxy stays and parties or Billy takes her home.  Given that, how does the scene resolve if both Roxy and Billy's player's beat the producer?

As it stands, it seems like whoever narrates has a responsibility to come up with an explanation that allows Roxy to impress her friends yet also allows Billy to impress his Father, and the only way I can see that being done is by the narrator, in some way, discarding the premise of the conflict.  For example, Roxy might elude Billy, but Billy saves a little old lady as he's walking home and it witnessed by his Father, earning a "Thattaboy".  I coudl see that working out for the occaisional exception, but it seems to violate the idea of scope, and more, it's kind of contrived, and I admit that goes down th epath of shows not to watch. Also, frankly, this is a situation where the conflict is easier to get around than many of the other examples I've seen brought up, so  contriving an explanation becomes an even less satisfying resolution as the conflict becomes more clear cut.

An alternative would be to say that there's something wrong with the example, and the protagonists need to set their stakes so they can both succeed, but for the nonce, I'm goign to assume it's a valid example.

So what's the third option I'm missing?  How should it play out?

-Rob D.

[Blankshield]

I could probably find even better examples, but for sake of commonality, I'm goign to turn to the book, and the conflict with Roxy and Billy on page 60+.

Now, their stakes (Impress her friends vs Impress his father) are not completely at odds, but the framing of the scene makes it clear that they have been put at odds by the conflict of whether Roxy stays and parties or Billy takes her home.  Given that, how does the scene resolve if both Roxy and Billy's player's beat the producer?

As it stands, it seems like whoever narrates has a responsibility to come up with an explanation that allows Roxy to impress her friends yet also allows Billy to impress his Father, and the only way I can see that being done is by the narrator, in some way, discarding the premise of the conflict.  For example, Roxy might elude Billy, but Billy saves a little old lady as he's walking home and it witnessed by his Father, earning a "Thattaboy".  I coudl see that working out for the occaisional exception, but it seems to violate the idea of scope, and more, it's kind of contrived, and I admit that goes down th epath of shows not to watch. Also, frankly, this is a situation where the conflict is easier to get around than many of the other examples I've seen brought up, so  contriving an explanation becomes an even less satisfying resolution as the conflict becomes more clear cut.

An alternative would be to say that there's something wrong with the example, and the protagonists need to set their stakes so they can both succeed, but for the nonce, I'm goign to assume it's a valid example.

So what's the third option I'm missing?  How should it play out?

-Rob D.

Admittedly, I don't have the book in front of me, but I don't recall the "stay and party" vs "take sister home".  All I remember is Roxy is trying to impress her friends, and the action she's taking to do that is avoid her nosy brother.  Billy is trying to impress his dad by ratting on his sister.

If they both won, I'd narrate something like this:
Roxy and Billy spend the night in a strange sort of hide and seek.  He's searching the ballroom, she's on the balcony.  He goes out the french doors, she goes through the garden into the house.  All of this enforced flitting has Roxy seeing everyone but never staying long; her friends are impressed by how she's up on everything that's happening.  Billy, frustrated by his efforts, ducks out and hides in the lane on the way home.  When Roxy tries to sneak back into the house, Billy catches her in the act and the ensuing shouting match wakes up her dad who sees Roxy in her socialite attire and gives her hell for seeing "those kinds of folk".  Billy, in his everyday clothes, is never suspected, and after Roxy runs off in tears, gets an short nod from his dad and a comment "Keep sensible, son.  All this runnin' off and sneakin' around... I'm glad you're steering clear."

James

[Alan]

Hi Rob,

Well I believe--rigorously by the book--only the stakes matter in the roll (Impress her friends vs Impress his father). Whether they stay or go is incidental and not carved in stone.  That's just the "how" of achieving the stakes.

So the person who wins narration gets the final say on how everything plays out, as long as the stakes won or lost are achieved as rolled.  If the narrator has trouble coming up with ideas, the group is welcome to brainstorm.  I'm not sure if the revised rules say it, but winning narration doesn't mean everyone shuts up and waits for the narrators brilliant explanation.  No, players can give suggestions and the narrator can ask for them; then the narrator has final say on what happens.

[iago]

So the person who wins narration gets the final say on how everything plays out, as long as the stakes won or lost are achieved as rolled.  If the narrator has trouble coming up with ideas, the group is welcome to brainstorm.  I'm not sure if the revised rules say it, but winning narration doesn't mean everyone shuts up and waits for the narrators brilliant explanation.  No, players can give suggestions and the narrator can ask for them; then the narrator has final say on what happens.

The problem here is that both of the players roll/draw against the producer, and thus, they can both succeed.  What we're digging at is the issues surrounding both protagonists succeeding (against the producer), but if both "wins" are active -- and they're contradictory -- it's not clear what to do.

If, instead, the players' stakes being in conflict was an indication that they're drawing against each other (instead of against the producer), then there's no problem... but I believe that's counter to the text.  And the way I read what you're saying above a certain way, you seem to think that the folks are drawing against each other -- but I think that's "wrong" by the text.  (Don't have mine on hand.)

[Darren Hill]

You're quite right, Fred, on all counts - that is counter to the text (I'cve read Matt point it out many times), and those are the issues we are digging around.

[Alan]

In the example, I can imagine both players winning.  The narrator then gets to explain how one character impresses her friends while the other impresses her father.  Even if one is trying to impress friends by sniping at dad, something can happen to turn things around so both ends are achieved.  I don't see the contradiction.

I wonder if this search for contradiction isn't getting too hypothetical?  Has this really happened in play?

[Darren Hill]

Alan, have a look back at my first post in this thread. I list two examples, bothj of which occurred in my first session, and one of which involved four possible entirely contradictory outcomes.

[iago]

In the example, I can imagine both players winning.  The narrator then gets to explain how one character impresses her friends while the other impresses her father.  Even if one is trying to impress friends by sniping at dad, something can happen to turn things around so both ends are achieved.  I don't see the contradiction.

I wonder if this search for contradiction isn't getting too hypothetical?  Has this really happened in play?

It happens for certain in any direct X vs Not-X situation.  Suppose it was "A wants to impress her friends" and "B wants A to fail to impress her friends"?

And, yes, it's happened.

[Darren Hill]

Scene Requests 2: one thing we found was that many scenes seemed to lead directly to an obvious conflict. <snip>

I had this problem, too. There are, I think, three reasons for it.

1. We didn't realize that the person setting the scene should be pretty much hands-off after saying, "Location X, Plot/Character, General Agenda".

2. Exactly what an agenda should encompass was not, and may still not be clear to us.

3. Possibly a subcategory of 2. If things are too vague, that is, if you've got the hands-off approach, this is when the players and producer may look around and go, "Um, well, we know what the conflict should logically be. We don't know anything else, and no ideas are springing to mind. Okay, go conflict. Flip those cards." This is a problem because it loses the meat and potatoes of the game, the actual interaction. The mechanics are there to assist, not replace it, correct?

Number 3 wasn't an issue with us (except in the very first player scene request). In all our cases of players assuming too much framing power, it was because the session context and the chosen agenda automatically filled in all those extra details - there was no "what do we do now," it was "this is what we do now, lets draw."

That point 2 (coupled with 1) is I think what's seriously been tripping us up. I think in many of our cases, even a simple agenda of the sort Matt suggested in his first reply, coupled with the context of the session events, automatically lead to what we were doing.
"I'm the Engineer, I'm in the engine room, it's a plot scene, I'm trying to repair the ship" - this just after a bomb has gone off in the engine room. There were a lot of scenes like this. I can see, obviously, more needs to be added to this scene to make it a good PtA scene - how to tie in issues, etc., but it's just not clear to me what needs to be added to do that.
It felt perfectly natural just to move straight to, "ok, draw cards and let's see if you repair the ship."