[PTA] Red Sands Pilot/Real Life Soap Opera

[RogerB]

We're for the most part a fairly traditional gaming group. Been playing together for decades. Our favorite RPGs are Champions, D&D3, d6/Star Wars, and Talislanta. Occasionally I've run some of the more "rules light" games (Theatrix, Everway, Fudge) with somewhat less success. We've never run an "indie" RPG before. Any oddness wrt my interpretation of PTA is no doubt my fault, having never watched nor played the game before. Our latest GM said he needed a few more weeks to get his campaign up and running, so I suggested in the meantime we try PTA. Folks agreed, and we were off. That was the Friday before New Years.

Friday after New Years we do the series pitch thing. Took most of the night. Set the game on a semi-terraformed Mars, 200 years after Earth had its apocalypse event. Earth kept the colonists on a short leash, technologically speaking, so much of the high tech has been failing since then and the world has a bit of a Western feel to it. Oh yeah, and we found the original reptilian Martians in underground caves, and thanks to their help, have accelerated the terraforming with Jurassic-era plants and animals. We're calling it Red Sands. It'll be mostly about the tensions between the lizards, Dome-living humans, and Wilder (outdoor) humans.

We made up characters, too:
PP made a Domie anthropologist --daughter of the Dome director.
DP made a Wilder hunter -- young, hot, and not ready to settle down to his arranged marriage.
DM made a Lizard prospecter, in love with the (Lizard) schoolmarm.
MK made a Wilder shaman -- herbalist, counsellor, pacifist.
I'll be producer.

We're all excited about playing something none of us would ever have dreamed up on our own. Lizards, zeppelins, sword fights, martians, dinosaurs, romance, woot!

It's mid-February when we all get together again. Bleah. DP has lost his character, wants to recreate him. MK changes his shaman's issue from pacifism to finding out what happened to his village while he was away. Both edits wind up being for the better. No one can remember what the mechanics are, so we go over some sample scenes. And by the time we're done with that, it's too late to begin the Pilot and we're done for the night.

It's end of March when we get together next. Illnesses, vacations, conventions, miscommunications have prevented us from convening for 6 weeks. The energy is just being sucked out of this campaign and we haven't even begun yet. PP has decided to change chars from Domie anthropologist to world-destroying Earth combat robot. Or something. After an hour of messing around, he settles instead on being DP's brother, tired of living in his shadow. After that, we get sidetracked into a discussion of Life On Mars, since it's clear when talking about the world-destroying robot idea, that we all have a very different view of what the campaign world is like. And that's it for the night.

We get together the next week (OMG!) except for PP who's dropped the bombshell that afternoon that he's giving up RPGs for good. So we just go for the Pilot anyway without him. We managed to finish 6 scenes that night -- we feel like we've barely started the Pilot -- maybe we're somewhere in the middle of act II. It's getting late so we call it a night.

The next week we reconvene and only get 3 scenes finished, due to missed bus connections and lateness of the pizza delivery guy. Feels like we're almost halfway done with the pilot, perhaps. The enthusiasm for the campaign seems really low, but people are still willing to give it a fair shot. From my perspective, it's not the best campaign I've run, but it isn't the worst, either. We're still running up against our lack of familiarity with the rules and "feel" of the game, which isn't much different from our Shadowrun experiences. (Trying out new games that is, not that Shadowrun and PTA are similar!)

Some questions about the game.....

(1) The players keep wanting to suggest scenes that only have NPCs in them. By rules, there's no conflict possible if there aren't any PCs in the scene. Which means I would just play out the scene myself until I'm done. This seems kinda boring? Any suggestions for how to handle this?

(2) As a follow-on to #1, some of the scenes players are asking for are just simple cut scene type things. "I would like a scene showing that one of the bandits got away. No players involved." Is it really necessary to blow one's whole turn for this? Seems somewhat expensive for what you're getting out of it...

(3) Plot vs Character. We're all having a tough time deciding what the difference is between these when setting the scenes. "The agenda for this scene is for MK and DM to find a reason to travel together" Is that a plot scene because they'll be travelling together now? Or a character scene because they're bonding or something? Mostly we just flail and pick Plot.

(4) When picking stakes for the conflict, is there a preferred order? In particular, do I have all the PCs pick their win-stakes first, then I pick the lose-stakes for everyone? Or do we pick win/lose stakes for player 1, then pick win/lose stakes for player 2, etc? I would hope it doesn't matter, and would worry that it does...

(5) What do you do if you find the scene doesn't satisfy the agenda? There were a couple scenes where, when we got to the end, we realized we hadn't really satisfied the scene's stated purpose. We did have a conflict though, and it all flowed okay. It just... didn't do what it was supposed to. We just kinda shrugged our shoulders, said "well, that didn't do what it was supposed to", and moved on to the next scene. Pay more attention, I guess?

(6) The rhythm of scenes is not quite what I expected. I somehow expected a player to suggest a scene, the producers sets the scene in motion, and then the players and producers do some improv theater kinda thing until a Conflict arises. At that point, you press the Pause button. Set stakes, play cards. Narrator sketches out how things work out. You press Resume button, and everyone jams to finish the scene. (Unicorns bring us snax and mountain dew whenever we want in this idyllic world, too). Our scenes don't work like that. Probably the biggest difference is that the Narrator works *everything* out, so finishing the scene feels kinda like a lame rehash of "what he said". Any tips?


Sorry for being so terse on my first post. Writing well takes an order of magnitude longer for me than is convenient, and I'd like to finish this in under two hours. I've kept notes on what the scenes were (agenda, characters, stakes, who won), in case anyone wants to know more. But that two hour limit is looming quickly.

Cheers,
Roger B

[Matt Wilson]

Roger:

Thanks for posting. I'm glad you tried it out. Games are always hard to get into when you have weeks that pass in between them.

Here's some specific responses to your questions:

1 and 2. I think when players want whole scenes about minor characters, something's amiss. I'd be like, dude, what about this cool character you spent all that time on? Why isn't this NPC your actual character, if you're so interested? If it's just a matter of "can we say this happened?" then it's not worth a scene. If the NPC in question is a connection, they don't really need to ask. They can just say it. If it's a producer-controlled NPC, it's the producer's call.

3. Plot vs. character is all about setting up the conflict. If it's a plot scene, and it's a courtroom scene, the conflict is gonna be about whether someone's guilty or not. If it's a character scene, it's gonna be about how the character develops amid the cries of objection and the questioning and all that, or maybe about will the character risk being in contempt of court in order to stand up for what he or she believes is right.

4. I can't see how it'd matter offhand which way you approached it. Everyone should have a chance to edit their stakes upon hearing everyone else's.

5. If it didn't go right, everyone has to buy a fresh copy of the book and read it again. No, seriously, shit happens. Roleplaying is a work in progress. Everybody has games that didn't quite work out. Just talk about it afterward. It's everyone's responsibility to make a scene work.

6. Can you explain what you mean by "Probably the biggest difference is that the Narrator works *everything* out." Maybe can you provide an example of how a conflict went in play?

[Georgios Panagiotidis]

I've run into similar problems when dealing with the difference between plot and character scenes. This is how I now explain the concept to new players:

"The Agenda of a scene tells you its purpose as far as the story of the episode is concerned. This shouldn't be confused with the result of the scene. The Agenda doesn't say what will happen in the scene, it only says what function it has in the overall structure of the story. Think back to your basic drama set-up: Introduction - Complication - Resolution. To which of these does your scene belong? Once you figured it out, place it into the context of your episode. So instead of saying "Agenda: Introduction", you could say "Agenda: we meet with a client to talk about her case". Instead of "Agenda: Complication", you could say "Agenda: we find out who's sending these threats". Instead of "Agenda: Resolution", you could say "Agenda: we have try to catch the culprit". Obviously during the game this descriptions will be a bit more evocative.

The distinction between plot scene and character scene serve to focus the scene. By picking one or the other, you choose what you want the scene to deal with. If it's a character scene, the scene's conflict will be build around or at least heavily informed by your character's Issue. If it's a plot scene, the conflict will deal with the direction the story will take and how the plot develops. But feel free to let your character's Issues shine through in plot scenes as well. Just remember that conflict and its outcome in those scenes will still be plot-based."

As for the role of the Producer: one mistake I've made in my first games was to act like the DM in D&D. My PTA games work much better, when I adopt more of a Moderator role. I collect suggestions from my players; we bounce ideas off of each other and once we've found something that gets those involved excited, I make my call and establish the scene that way. You should also remember, that this job is often handed over to one of the players, after a conflict has been resolved. Whoever gets the highest card, also gets to play Producer for the remainder of the scene. He collects the suggestions, picks the ones he considers best or most exciting for the group and establishes them. What the Producer (or the player with the highest card) shouldn't do is shut the group out, and try to come up with an ending to the scene on his own. At least, whenever I do this the game freezes instantly, and it takes a while to get into it again.

[RogerB]

6. Can you explain what you mean by "Probably the biggest difference is that the Narrator works *everything* out." Maybe can you provide an example of how a conflict went in play?

Here's the scene pretty much as we played it, with my commentary at the end.

Some background: Chames [DM] and Televanni [MK] met Jameth [DP] yesterday in town, as a bartender. But there was an argument, Chames accused Jameth of trying to cheat him out of a fair assessment of his ores at the saloon. The saloon owner sided with Chames and she fired Jameth. That was the last we saw of Jameth. Since then, Televanni made a deal with Chames to help Chames lug supplies back to his prospecting grounds in return for supplies of his own. They're rafting back when they encounter Jameth on the bank.

Jameth's Issue: avoiding the responsibilities of being next in line to rule his village, including an arranged marriage
Chames' Issue: proving his love for the schoolmarm by getting enough money to provide for her
Televanni's Issue: finding out what destroyed his village and his family's fate during his years-long absence

It's a Plot scene. Just the 3 PCs. The agenda is "Why are we running into Jameth here?"

As the scene progresses, Chames offers Jameth a similar deal: help with the trip, and he'll make it financially worthwhile. Jameth accepts. Chames pulls some game off Jameth's campfire without asking and starts eating it. Jameth is irked at Chames' presumption and wants to put a stop to this. At this point, the players want to go to Conflict, pretty much over who's alpha-maler.

We wind up setting the stakes as follows...
Jameth: win(is an equal, not a subordinate), lose(sorry, can't read my notes here and I've forgotten)
Chames: win(he's dangerous), lose(he's really not a threat)
Televanni: win(keeps folks from drawing blood), lose(he gets wounded)

We play cards. Jameth and Chames win their stakes, Televanni loses his, I get to Narrate. I ponder some without input from any of the players....

Bandits attack from ambush! Televanni takes a crossbow bolt and goes down. Chames and Jameth manage to not get hit with any bolts. The bandits charge. I narrate an exciting fight. Jameth takes out 4 on his sword. Chames manages to take 1 out on his own by ripping the bandit's throat out (he's a martian). Jameth demonstrates he's not a pushover, and is skilled with a sword. Chames is kinda vicious. Televanni got wounded. Scene over.

Excuses first: our first game, last session of the night, everyone tired, about 1am by this time, yada yada yada.

20/20 Hindsight. [MK] was the first to point out that the conflict (and its resolution) didn't actually address the Agenda, which got mislaid in the Chames v. Jameth pissing match. We were all too tired to redo the scene. No one's issues came up, were addressed, or anything like that -- the stakes didn't even bear on them. Not sure that this is critical for a Plot scene, but still worth noting. The losing stakes are all little more than "not WinStakes". I narrated the whole fight. Didn't even give them the opportunity for making up their own combat signature moves. Or dialog. Introducing the bandits as an indirect competition seemed like a cool idea at the time. Shoot me now?

I'll stop here. The more I think about this scene, the lamer it replays in my head. This was probably the most egregious scene of our (so far) 9 scenes of the Pilot. Raking me over the coals for not understanding the rules isn't terribly effective, but guilting me by showing how I made the game less enjoyable for the players (and myself) does work. Please feel free to point out where I broke a rule, missed the point, jumped the rails. Show me better ways of playing out the scene, setting stakes, narrating, anything. Just for the love of god, don't send me back to ShadowRun!!

RogerB

[Matt Wilson]

Hey:

I'm totally baffled. How did a conflict about who's the alpha male suddenly involve bandits? It seems like something went wrong there, or else part of your post was lost.

[RogerB]

I'm totally baffled. How did a conflict about who's the alpha male suddenly involve bandits? It seems like something went wrong there, or else part of your post was lost.

Nope, nothing was lost, it's no doubt as lame as it appears. One instant no bandits in sight, next instant bandits. On a side note, I thought we were allowed to introduce stuff as part of resolution. Am I wrong about that? For some scenes we've done it with more foundation laid first (we said the saloon had other people in it, well there's this guy in a blue flannel shirt who does X), for others, with little or no foundation (guys i think that zeppelin over there may be following us, or televanni notices a glint in the rubble of the shrine and pulls out a necklace). Admittedly, this is more extreme than we'd done before. Did I go over the top? Where could (or should) someone have reined me in? "I picked the scene for 3 PCs, not 3 PCs + 5 Bandits"?

As for why introducing the bandits in the first place, I thought it might go better as a competition than a direct confrontation. Probably my personal biases as a confrontation avoider coming to the fore. Also, Chames and Jameth had made bad first impressions on each other and it had progressed to a little friction between their players and I wanted to deescalate that. I suppose if the players had actually wanted to go head to head, this pretty much shut them down.

Giving up my GM/Control Freak tendencies is harder than it looks...

[RogerB]

If it's a character scene, the scene's conflict will be build around or at least heavily informed by your character's Issue.

Oooh, I like that! Very objective, very simple to grasp. I'm definitely going to try this in our next session.

One thing it will likely highlight in our campaign is that MK has brought up and done stuff with Televanni's Issue. Neither DP nor DM have bothered. My highly subjective and inexpert assessment is that Chames and Jameth don't have very useful Issues. But it's our first time playing, and we haven't even made it through the Pilot yet. There's more than enough time to remedy that.

[Warren]

I would say that the Issues your players have picked are too narrow. You gave the Issues as:

Jameth's Issue: avoiding the responsibilities of being next in line to rule his village, including an arranged marriage
Chames' Issue: proving his love for the schoolmarm by getting enough money to provide for her
Televanni's Issue: finding out what destroyed his village and his family's fate during his years-long absence

I can't easily see these Issues being addressed often in the game, as they seem more like character goals rather than character "flaws" to me. If they were broadened to something like:

Jameth: Avoiding and/or ignoring any responsibility that gets given to him.
Chames: Poverty. How can he profit from the situations he finds himself in?
Televanni: Guilt. He was absent when his village and his family were destroyed/went missing, and he feels responsible.

You might be able to tie the Issues into the game better; certainly it could provoke an interesting conflict between Jameth & Televanni's approaches to responsibility and so forth.

[Matt Wilson]

On a side note, I thought we were allowed to introduce stuff as part of resolution.

Well, what you introduce ought to be related somehow to the conflict as everyone imagines it. The conflict, as you narrated it, was pretty much centered around the bandits, rather than centered around what the players were doing before you drew cards.

Also, narration works much better if you get continuous feedback from the other players while narrating, so that narration is often enough the person with authority going, "yeah, what you just said is totally what happens."