[PTA] The Return - Series creation and Pilot episode

[Jonas Ferry]

Yesterday three guys and I met at the apartment of one of them for a series creation and pilot episode session of PTA. I used the first edition rules with the additional changes from the homepage. The players were Marco, Arvid, and Gunnar, and none of us knew each other from before. We found each other by a call for players I submitted to Rollspel.nu, the biggest Swedish roleplaying forum, since I've just moved to a new town. They were the three people that answered, so I didn't have to choose people. Another nice thing was that I knew from their posting styles on the forum that they'd be serious people, and I'm glad to say I was right.

We met and had a nice dinner provided by Gunnar, and talked about gaming in general and PTA in particular. I explained an overview of the system and character creation, and after finishing the dinner we started pitching ideas. Rejected suggestions were post-WWII where Germany won, Hill Street Blues in a fantasy city, and something with samurai bears. Arvid kept suggesting really far out stuff, and after a while Marco asked for a decision on whether we wanted a "weird" or "normal" setting. We all agreed that it would start out normal, and that it was easier to introduce weird stuff later on than doing it the other way around.

So someone said that they should all work in some building, a hospital or a hotel or something. The hotel idea caught on, but the characters won't work there, they'll be three brothers who have returned after their father's death to claim the hotel as part of their inheritance. We decided that the hotel will be in northern Scotland, next to a small Twin Peaks-esque town of strange people, and that the characters have all lived in different parts of the world. They grew up at the hotel, though, to make it possible to have flashback scenes to their youth that can shed light on what's happening in the present.

We sat down and I described the different parts of the character sheet. Everyone had ideas and I felt that everyone suggested things for each other's characters, which was very good. We ended up with these protagonists.

Gunnar is playing Patric Pherson (actor: Orlando Bloom, acting like the concierge Michel in Gilmore Girls), the oldest brother. He's a stylist who has worked in France. He's ashamed of his Scottish heritage and has dropped the "Mc" from his last name. Gasp! This has turned his mother who's still alive, and also wants the hotel, into his nemesis. His issue is "perfectionist". Edges are "styling" and "elite swimmer", with a connection to a fellow stylist called Jean-Paul Legout. His personal set is the hotel pool area and his screen presence 2-1-1-2-3.

Marco is playing Jonathan McPherson (actor: Clive Owen), the middle brother. He's a playboy who's been living large around the casinos of Europe. His issue is "irresponsibility", and has to do with him not wanting to be tied town by anything or anyone. He has a nemesis called Mario Carramone that none of us know anything about yet, except he's probably hunting Jonathan over some old debt or something. Jonathan's edges are "playboy" and "jewel thief", and he has a connection called Jenny McKenzie who's a well-preserved lady in town that he "knew" when he was young. Their relationship is only hinted at so far, so we don't know exactly how well they knew each other. His personal set is the hotel wine cellar of the hotel which, since they're in Scotland, is also incidentally full of whisky. Screen presence is 1-2-3-1-2.

Arvid is playing Adrian McPherson (actor: Jim Carrey, in serious role as in Eternal Sunshine), the youngest brother. He's an artist/student whose issue is "acceptance", both getting accepted amongst others and accepting others the way they are. He's the "difficult and deep" guy, moody and brooding. Adrian's edges are "academic" and "misunderstood artist" and his connection is Emma McPherson, their mother (actor: Jane Wyman, the mother in Falcon Crest). His personal set is a room in the attic. He has a nemesis in Hazel McLellen, a childhood friend who's the daughter of the owner of a nearby whisky distillery. The distillery was jointly owned by Adrian's father and her father. The problem with his nemesis is that he's always been, and still is, deeply in love with her. Screen presence 1-2-1-3-2.

Character creation was great fun. Dropping traits from 3-2 to 2-1 in the second edition was a good idea; it's more than enough since they're usually so wide in application. One thing we noticed was that it's easy to choose an edge that's the same as the concept (concept "playboy", edge "playboy", for example). This seemed ok, though, unless we should have phrased the concepts differently.

We took a short break and I prepared the first scene while two players went to the store for some cookies. Someone had already suggested the funeral as an opening scene, and I thought it was a good idea. Gunnar objected and said that he didn't want such an important event in the pilot, since that'll be in the backstory of the first episode if we decide to continue from the pilot. As a compromise we said that we could have a short introduction scene showing the funeral in the beginning of the first episode anyway, a scene that'll only be briefly described.

The location was the town's small cemetery, in pouring rain. All characters were there, of course: the three brothers, their mother, the four people working at the hotel, and a stunning but disinterested blonde by Jonathan's side. We had a short scene after the casket had been lowered in the ground where they walked to the car with the brothers quarreling. Mother Emma quickly defended her favorite son Adrian when he was accused of something, and they jumped into a Rolls-Royce to be driven up to the hotel. Jonathan lit a cigarette but someone (Patric as the oldest brother?) made him throw it out the window. We cut the scene without a conflict.

The next scene was requested by Gunnar. It was a plot scene, I think, where the goal was to find out what had happened at the hotel in the last 10 years. The location was at the hotel at the funeral wake, and people were walking around talking with glasses in their hands. These glasses were used by the players to show some character color. Jonathan was having whisky if my notes are accurate, Patric a glass of wine and Adrian a wine bottle. Drinking from the bottle at a wake did sound like it could steer things towards his acceptance issue. I bowed out of playing a character in the scene, as I wanted to be able to study the players and jump in with a conflict at the right moment, in case they didn't realize they had one themselves. The brothers switched between asking each other what they'd been up to and accusing the others of having no right to claim the hotel. Marco challenged the other players by having Jonathan say that he was happy that their father was dead, with the others defending their father's memory. I almost jumped in with a conflict over whether their father was good or bad, with the characters having their own stakes in the question. But instead they drifted over to discussing what they wanted to do with the hotel and here we had our conflict: "What should happen to the hotel"?

We all agreed that none of them were in a position of actually realizing their plans at this point, so it was more of a way to see who had the upper hand. A nostalgic Adrian wanted to keep the hotel just the way it were, Jonathan wanted to sell it as soon as possible and Patric wanted to redecorate and style it before either selling it or keeping it running. After some discussion these were the stakes the characters had in the conflict:

Adrian: Does he manage to be authoritative and have his opinions accepted? He used his academic edge.

Jonathan: Does he manage to show that he's careless and unbound by any attachments? He used his playboy edge.

Patric: Does he convince the others to style the hotel, whoever of them wins the discussion? He used his stylist edge.

Since this was the first conflict and I wanted points in the audience pool I threw in 5 budget, drawing 6 cards. The players drew three cards each.

The result was this:

Producer: 6 cards, 4 successes, 10 high.
Adrian: 3 cards, 0 successes, 9 high
Jonathan: 3 cards, 0 successes, king high
Patric: 3 cards, 1 success, king high

They all compared their successes to mine, no one winning of course. So they all failed, but two of them had narration rights over their parts of the conflict. We quickly agreed, the players suggesting their own outcomes, that Jonathan failed to look careless by getting agitated and angry at Adrian. Adrian wanted to look authoritative, but failed, so he was going to be on the receiving end of Jonathan's outburst. Patric didn't manage to convince anyone of his styling ideas, so Gunnar suggested that he should be on the outside of the argument oblivious to his brother's fighting, unsuccessfully talking about his styling ideas.

The players acted out the rest of the scene with some shouting, some standing up and trying to walk away and some remarks about the color of the drapes, or something. It was very fun to watch them act, and after their characters split up we ended the scene. They awarded each other fan mail, partly because the audience pool would be lost at the end of the episode and partly because they enjoyed what the others did. That's actually an interesting part of giving fan mail. Even if you do it just to "use the system", to get some mechanical benefit out of it, you still need to find something about what the other player did that warrants the point. Even if it's not something you would normally compliment ("Oh, I liked your tone of voice, even if it's the one your character's always using") the receiver at least gets some positive feedback. That's really good, and I don't think the producer should ever disallow fan mail being awarded, even if he can push for a short motivation to drag out something positive about the awarded player.

We ended with a round of shots for the teaser of episode one, starting with me. We didn't go in any special order of the players, instead everyone described their scene when it fitted with the rest. The teaser for episode 1 of The Return:

The brothers, their mother and the family attorney McGillis are assembled in the salon. Mother stands up shouting to the attorney "What? No will?!" – A hotel room where Jonathan says to someone out of camera: "What do you mean 'the suitcase is gone'?" – Filmed from the bottom of a round opaque jar we see Adrian saying "Yeah, there's no will and it looks like me and my brothers will be here for some time". Suddenly someone enters the room and he closes the lid on the jar, blacking the picture. – Patric knocks on his mother's door and sticks his head in. He says "Mother? McGillis?!" Mother Emma and the attorney are lying in bed under the cover. – End of teaser.

I have to say I really look forward to episode one. I like how we toned down the fantastic to get real people as characters, with the option of turning up the weird gauge later on. I think it showed that all four of us are used to GM, at least that's what I think. Everyone was suggesting things all the time, trying to help out with possible hooks for each other's characters and stuff like that.

But what I really liked was the way people confidently hinted at things to come, without none of us knowing how we'll get there and what it'll actually mean. We agreed on an introduction for the series with shots of the landscape and presentation shots of the main characters. But after we have shown Patric coming up from the hotel's swimming pool Baywatch style and Jonathan getting caught doing something fishy in the wine cellar, Marco suggested that we should have a clip from a fight scene between the characters. We have Patric and Jonathan fighting in a rainy Scottish moor, but we have no clue why their fighting or in which episode it'll happen. But I feel that we're all totally confident that we'll pull it off. We don't have to think about that more than that we have to make it happen some time in the future, and I want to see it!

Some questions:

- Does the characters look like PTA characters should?
- Did we handle the conflict correctly?
- What's the point of the producer's setup scene that he can do at the end, if you do a teaser afterwards? That just sounds like a teaser before the teaser. Or is the setup scene supposed to be the first scene of the next episode?

[John Harper]

The characters are great. Perfect for PTA. I also like how you have set up a good dramatic situation with "What do we do with the hotel?" That will help focus the game play. Compare that with "We're all brothers in a strange town," which would lack a clear point for the show's action

You handled conflicts correctly in terms of finding a good conflict and setting good stakes. This is not always easy, so kudos to you guys. One small error, though: The single player with the highest card is "the narrator" for the whole conflict. You don't check each player's high card against the producer to create several mini-narrators. Having said that, though, it sounds like you handled group-authored narration perfectly, so it really didn't matter.

I can't remember the details of the producer's setup scene, and I don't have my book with me. Someone else can field that one.

This show is yet another in the long line of PTA shows that I would watch if it was on TV. Great stuff.

[Jonas Ferry]

Hello John,

I had to check the rules and yes, you're correct, only one narrator per conflict. It would've been Patric's player with the final narration rights, as I remember that Jonathan's said all his cards were clubs. This time it worked anyway, but it'll be nice to get things right in the future.

One advice I borrowed from Dogs in the Vineyard was about whether traits apply to the conflict or not. When you use a trait in a conflict you do it before you tell people what exactly happens. If someone who doesn't like that trait being used gets narration rights it's going to be hard for them to accept it, since it's suddenly the narrating player's scene. I think the narrator will feel a bit more ownership over what's going to happen, and you don't want to have to accept some traits that just feel silly. So, the Dogs advice: Convince the other players that the trait applies before you draw cards. If no one objects when you use the trait, then it's ok and you don't have to explain anything. If someone feels like it's far-fetched you need to talk some more. The producer's role is mainly to mediate between the players.

I wasn't surprised that we got an interesting series, interesting to us at least, since the TV-series format makes everyone at the table feel like they have to think about how to set up something with potential scenes and conflicts. We have a five episode series and even before the first episode I already feel like time's running out. But that's a good thing. You can't waste an episode or two doing nothing, things will have to happen all the time. So you're suddenly forced to only play out stuff that is interesting and that would be interesting for an audience to watch. Another cool thing is that it's only what's shown "onscreen" that matters, so you don't have to spend a lot of time going through equipment lists and stuff like that. Or the hotel, we don't have to prepare a complete map over the whole place. If a scene requires a golf course, there's a golf course there and it can be used in later scenes as it's just been established.

So has anyone used the producer's setup scene, at the end of an episode before the teaser?