[PTA] Playing Pretender

[TJ_Crow]

I've been going over PTA lately with the intent of pitching it to my group shortly and thinking about the shows we have all enjoyed so that I can offer examples of games we could do.  One of the shows I was thinking about was "The Pretender" and I started wondering about how to run it as a PTA game.  I always thought that the characters of Sydney, Parker, and Broots were just as interesting or more so than Jarod in terms of the emotional conflicts and challenges they face.  The more I've thought about it the more it kept me wondering how it would work out.  The main thing that caught me about it was whether it could handle having a distinctly primary character or whether it could only support a true ensemble cast.

Has anyone else run a game with substantially unbalanced screen time or have any suggestions with how they could run such a game?

-TJ

[alexandro]

I really liked Pretender, especially how they managed to start with an episodic structure and then, before I realized it, turned the show into a serial.

I don't think the screen time is unbalanced, if you think of it in terms of importance to the story arc.
Sure Jarod does a lot of stuff each episode, but that can be expressed in just few scenes, which are split up and intercut with scenes of the other characters. Only when it is his spotlight he would have long scenes, relating to his past.

And I would strongly consider the other players to play a supporting cast member (the man Jarod is going to bring to justice, the person wronged by the former...etc.), so they have something to do in the scenes with Jarod.