[PtA] I have a complete failure to grok...

[Eynowd]

Hi Geoff,

I hope you'll take everyone's comments not as "No, wait, you really should try this," but rather as purely informative. If you've got a feel for what PTA's trying to do, and it just doesn't grab you, everything's good. Not every game works for everyone.

It sounds like you've gotten some ideas from the book about player empowerment and scene framing. I think if you try some of those techniques in a traditional task-resolution game, and they provide something for you, then you've probably gotten your money's worth.

Andrew,

I'm quite happy to have someone prove me wrong and show me (as opposed to just telling me) how I can create a story that has as much action as an episode of Buffy or Angel. I wish someone would. Brand's kindly offered to organise an IRC game sometime, if logistics can be worked around.

I might take the concepts and work on them on my own to see if there's something useful that I can extract what I want from it. I don't know how successful I'll be, but it might be an interesting intellectual exercise...

[Frank T]

I played my first game of PtA on IRC. If you want to play the game with people who know it, maybe that's the way. Check out Indie Netgaming, I'm sure someone can point you there.

- Frank

[Brand_Robins]

Check out Indie Netgaming, I'm sure someone can point you there.

http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/indie-netgaming/

Now I just have to figure out a time when the 15 hours between Geoff and I isn't a killer.

[IMAGinES]

Hi, Eynowd,

I bought a copy of PtA at Gencon this year... Unfortunately, as it's written, I still can't grok it... As far as I can tell, the mechanics of the system reduce everything to a single play of cards to determines which side of the conflict "wins" that scene and who gets to narrate the outcome, apparently without any actual in-character roleplaying at all.

What I don't get is how you use those mechanics to play out a high-action and/or high-suspense scene. With everything reduced to a single play of cards, I don't see how you could do a scene where there's a big fight, or a rescue from a burning building or anything like that. If you play the cards early, you already know the outcome of the scene before you start to roleplay it out, thereby taking away the suspense part of the game and you have one person dictating how the entire scene will play out from that point on (if I'm reading it right). If you start to roleplay the scene out first and then play the cards at the end, then you've got no mechanics at all to help figure out the steps along the way. Ideally (as far as I am concerned), the players would roleplay their way through the scene in character, and the drama and tension in that scene would escalate, until the conflict was resolved through their choice of actions.

Now, if you picked it up at GenCon, I'm assuming you have the Revised Edition, the one with the black-and-blue cover with the little TV on it. I've only got the original edition, wich has the full-colour cover. Please correct me if I'm wrong, okay?

As I understand it, one of the things Matt introduced in the Revised Edition was a "multi-flip" mechanic. He describes it here, and it reads like what you might be looking for - at least in terms of pacing and creating suspense in a big, tense combat or chase scene.

Does that help?

[Eynowd]

Hi, Eynowd,
Now, if you picked it up at GenCon, I'm assuming you have the Revised Edition, the one with the black-and-blue cover with the little TV on it. I've only got the original edition, wich has the full-colour cover. Please correct me if I'm wrong, okay?

As I understand it, one of the things Matt introduced in the Revised Edition was a "multi-flip" mechanic. He describes it here, and it reads like what you might be looking for - at least in terms of pacing and creating suspense in a big, tense combat or chase scene.

Yes, I got the revised edition, which does have the multi-flip rules in the back. I did see them and while that does go some ways towards addressing the issues I have, it didn't feel as though it was what I wanted.

*shrug* I suspect PtA is one of those games that I won't get until I play it. It's a chicken and egg problem, I think. Until I see how the rules work in practice (i.e. by playing it), I don't think it's going to gel for me.

PtA is close in concept to the sort of game that I'm very interested in running/playing. I suspect it would work wonderfully for the "Gamma World meets Northern Exposure" concept that I've wanted to run since I devised the community rules for Gamma World D20 a couple of years ago.

cheers
Geoff