First time game, suggestions?

[Glendower]

Hello everyone,

I've convinced one of my gaming groups to give Primetime Adventures a go, we'll be playing on Jan 24 during one of our "between campaign" sessions. 

I'm very nervous about the game, as I'm not sure how they're going to react to it.  The five players I game with have been raised on a steady diet of D&D, and more D&D, this will really be a shift in gears.  They are willing but a little confused at my poor explanation of what this game entails.

What I'm looking for is some advice on set up, key things to inform everyone regarding the game (aside from the rules themselves), and important pieces to remember.  Any kind of advice would be really appreciated.

I also have a question.  When the conflict is resolved, and the high card person narrates, does that mean they narrate the entire scene from the point of conflict onward to resolution of the scene?  I understand the people playing the protagonists make suggestions as to what happens, but does this lead to the narrating taking over the protagonists involved in the conflict, and narrating what happens?  I'm just trying to get a clear picture of how all this fits together.  An example would really help, maybe pointing me to a few actual play posts that really show how the narration part works (I've read both the examples in the book and Moose in the City, it's what led me to buy this intriguing book).

I'm very much interested in putting my best foot forward in terms of getting the other players a real feel for this game, with the hope that it can hit one of our regular rotations.  I love everything about the concept, I just want to try to get the execution right.

[Judd]

How I handle narration rights, particulary when it is a scene that two other people were playing in and a third person got rights through Fan Mail, is the narration holder sets up the scene, says how the stakes are going to effect it, much like a film or play director, and then says, "Go!"

I don't have narrators play other people's characters.

I will answer more of your questions later in the week.

Good luck.

[Georgios Panagiotidis]

These are some of the difficulties I've run into when running PTA for experienced gamers.

Issues - Everybody should understand what issues are and how they relate to the game. Try to find examples from shows everybody at the table is familiar with (Star Trek TNG usually works for me). I've only run games in German and explaining issues has been the biggest hurdle for me. The players usually figure it out after we finished a game and they saw the rules in action.

Conflicts - If your players are only used to D&D, they might have difficulties dealing with conflict resolution in PTA. It helps to ask them specific questions: What does your character want to achieve? What is at stake? Make sure they understand that conflicts are not about specific actions (opening a door, hitting an NPC, etc.) but about achieving a scene-specific goal.

Co-operation - Most people I've played this game with were very hesitant to openly throw out suggestions about stakes, conflicts, scenes, etc. that did not directly involve them. They were used to one person (the GM) narrating and coming up with scenes and the players simply reacting to it. I've had to remind players that they should always speak up when they have a good idea about a scene. Encourage them to come up with details for scenes and stakes, that make the game more exciting for them.

Fan Mail - It's a player reward mechanic. The moment a player adds something to the game that gets another player excited about the scene, they should be awarded Fan Mail. Don't hesitate to remind them, if the audience pool keeps growing scene after scene.

Budget - Don't hoard your budget unnecessarily. Don't save it for the big finale at the end. Spend it on conflicts and stakes you find exciting, no matter when they happen in the game.

[Adam Biltcliffe]

My attempts with Primtetime Adventures haven't been terribly successful so far, but I have seen it go very bad when played by experienced gamers, and I feel a couple of the stumbling blocks are:

Players automatically constraining themselves to Actor stance. So, for example, if they've just been passed a scrap of paper by a mysterious stranger, make sure they realise that they have just as much power as the Producer to decide what the scrap of paper says. Forget about there being an objective reality out there that some omnescient GM knows all the secrets to - if it doesn't contradict something we've seen on the show previously, it's fair game.

Players not realising that the duty to drive the story and push events towards providing conflict for the other players devolves onto them as well as the Producer. Make sure they know beforehand that for the game to work they will need to consider "how I want to story to go" as well as "what I think my guy would do", or it might come as an unpleasant shock or else lead to dull, listless scenes devoid of conflict.

Take this with a grain of salt, since I've little experience with how the game goes when it really is running well. But I think those have been major contributing factors to what's upset my past attempts.

adam

[Nathan P.]

One thing about setup that Judd (Paka) did for for Hare and Hound that I'm pretty sure isn't in the book was to ask, first thing, about things that anyone absolutely didn't want in the game. It was cool because I think it's easier to think of dislikes than likes right off the bat, and once you have a list of dislilkes you have some stuff to play off against in order to find your likes.

Also, feel free to go around a couple times when you pitch the show. Take suggestions for one show, then put that piece of paper aside and talk about a different one, maybe a third. A lot of the time, when the group hits on a show that everyone's into, theres a "click" and you all know thats the one - and that makes it much more likely that you'll have a successful session, in my mind.

Finally, something that I think helps get into the "seasons of TV/plot arcs" mindset is to take everyones Screen Presence and make a chart with all of them on it, and talk about it, so that everyone gets an idea of the overall plotting of the show. If the hero's Spotlight episode is the 2nd episode, the ingenou's on the 3rd and the villians on the last, that gives a much different sense of the show than if the villians is first, the heros second and the girls is last. See how the former just seems more tragic, with a bright beginning but descending afterwards, while the latter starts off with the "bad" stuff and goes up from there? Once people start thinking in terms of story arcs across the episodes, it'll give some orientation for where to go for each session.

I hope some of that helps.

[Glendower]

Thanks all, my game went very well, thanks to some great advice from all of you.

An actual play report is written up in http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=18497.0.