conflict, its the one bit that I cant 'get'

[stefoid]

OK, this is how I would handle this kind of situation if I were Producing this game. This is only my personal viewpoint, but I hope it helps:

So the scene setter says "this is the scene where the cop chases the bad guy through the alleys - its a character development scene"

The director frames the first shot - alleyway with fire-escapes coming down the wall, garbage cans at the back of restaurants, cobbles stones, etc...

cop player:  I take out my gun and draw a bead on the bad guy "stop or Ill shoot"

(Notice I've dropped the 'old lady' part; I tend to put the conflict close to the start of a scene, and you'll see why in a bit).

Now how does this situation intersect with this character's Issue, and what does everybody think is best for the story? Let's assume that having the bad-guy get away at this point in the episode is what everyone thinks is best. So the conflict can't be "Do you catch the bad guy?" -- we already know the answer to that one (No, he won't).

Now let's recap on the cop's Issue:

lets say the cops issue is he has tension between getting results for his superiors - arrests and so on, and being a bit of a softy - gives kids a second chance rather than pushing them through the system, is often 'wasting' his time with non-official duties, etc...

You've got a guy who wants to reform criminals, rather than just arrest them. Shooting a bad guy goes pretty heavily against that, I reckon. You could have a conflict like "Do you shoot the bad guy in the back?", but as a producer, I think you shouldn't really dictate PC intents, so let's drop that one too.

So it has to be an action the bad guy (or other NPC) will take as/after he gets away from the cop. The cop is not really the violent, arresting type, and there is conflict over his superiors about results. One thing that springs to mind is: "Does the cop's boss think that the cop didn't do everything he could do to catch the bad guy?" But that could be another scene, maybe? (You could cut straight away back to the police station and cop explaining what happened to his boss, I guess.)

If we wanted to stay in the alleyway scene, you could have a conflict like "Does a bystander get hurt as the bad guy makes his escape?", as I'm guessing that the cop wouldn't want innocents to get harmed. But that only kinda ties into the cop's Issue. Maybe if instead of bystander, it was a streetkid who he was trying to straighten out (one of his Connections, even!). That would be neat! So I settle on:

"Bobby, your 'reforming streetkid' Connection, will get caught up in this situation. The conflict will determine if he gets hurt as the bad guy makes his escape."

And then instead of introducing the old lady, I introduce Bobby instead, and maybe have the bad guy grab him or something.  Anyway, that's my thought process for this kind of thing. And although it looks a lot, it actual play, I haven't found it too bad. Having clear, focused Issues helps a lot, as it makes it easier to find where the Issue and the situation "collide".

thanks , warren.  A few things to clear up...

In the situation described above, what does the player of the cop do and say?   

also, does this conflict put the producer and player in oppositon, and is that neccesary?

[Matt Wilson]

Hey:

Conflicts are always producer vs. player. There's no other possibility.

Unless I'm misunderstanding you.

[stefoid]

Hey:

Conflicts are always producer vs. player. There's no other possibility.

Unless I'm misunderstanding you.

Hi Matt.  I understand that the rules state the producer cards are pitted against the players cards from a mechanics point of view, but from a 'stakes' point of view, where is the opposition?  What makes the producer and players care whether their cards win or not?

[Matt Wilson]

Hey Stefoid:

I think I understand what you're asking. Ideally, a conflict should have investment from all the players. You'll want to find a conflict that has potential excitement no matter how it turns out. The player acts on what the protagonist would want, and the producer acts on what would oppose it. So it's opposition in that sense, yes. As producer you draw against the characters, even if sometimes you're secretly rooting for them to win. I think if you polled some actual play, you'd find reports of the producer shouting out, "come on, gimme bad cards!" at times.

In the situation described above, what does the player of the cop do and say? 

Do you mean before or after? If it's before, I'd probably cut to conflict right after the introduction of Bobby.

[Warren]

thanks , warren.  A few things to clear up...

In the situation described above, what does the player of the cop do and say?   

Just roleplay, pretty much. Let's go back to the example situation (Excuse the fairly crappy example dialog, if's off the top of my head -- I hope you get the idea, however.)

Cop player:  I take out my gun and draw a bead on the bad guy "stop or I'll shoot"

Producer: The bad guy turns and sees you drawing your gun and dives around the corner. You sprint after him, but are confronted with the sight of the Bad Guy using a kid as a human shield, with a knife to his neck! And not just any kid -- Bobby, your connection! Bobby's eyes widen as he sees your gun pointed in his direction.

Conflict! We all agree that we can't have you catch the bad guy at this point in the episode, right?

(Everybody nods)

So let's say the bad guy get away, but if you succeed, Bobby doesn't get hurt. Otherwise, bad things will happen. OK?

(Everybody agrees, makes suggestions, whatever, and then the cards come out and resolve the conflict. Let's say that the cop player loses, and the Producer gets the high card and narration rights.)

Now, the cop player just needs to play out the rest of the scene knowing that the bad guy will get away, but Bobby doesn't get hurt.

Cop player: I stop, shocked, and put my hands in the air. "Hey, now, let's not do anything stu..."

Producer: "Shut up, pig! Walk away, and forget you ever saw me!" The knife is still close to Bobby's neck.

Cop player: "OK, I'm putting the gun down". I do so... slowly.

Producer: "As you are bending down, you hear a clatter and see the bad guy dart off into the street. Bobby comes running over to you, anger and relief over his face." And that's the scene, OK?

Does that clear things up at all?

also, does this conflict put the producer and player in oppositon, and is that neccesary?

but from a 'stakes' point of view, where is the opposition?  What makes the producer and players care whether their cards win or not?

Like Matt, I'm a bit confused by this. The producer's job is to provide opposition and adversity for the protagonists to deal with. That's why the producer should care about winning. I found that when I ran a PTA game, things went "off the boil" if I didn't do this hard enough. It turned into a dull "soap opera", rather than a hard-hitting "drama", if that makes any sense.

And the player should be concerned about winning his stakes, because it (hopefully) ties into his Issue, and the player should have picked an Issue that he is interested in dealing with. 

I'm a bit lost on this point, I'm afraid.

(Just checked, and it looks like I've crossposted with Matt. I think I'm agree with him, tho', which is good!)

[stefoid]

Hey Stefoid:

I think I understand what you're asking. Ideally, a conflict should have investment from all the players. You'll want to find a conflict that has potential excitement no matter how it turns out. The player acts on what the protagonist would want, and the producer acts on what would oppose it. So it's opposition in that sense, yes. As producer you draw against the characters, even if sometimes you're secretly rooting for them to win. I think if you polled some actual play, you'd find reports of the producer shouting out, "come on, gimme bad cards!" at times.

Hi Matt.  yeah, thats the situation that was happening a LOT - both the producer and the players rooting for the producer to have bad cards.  So it seemed like "why bother with this conflict stuff - everybody at the table wants this to fall a certain way, so why bother making a random event out of it?"  Thats what I meant by doing these contrived clonflicts - having a conflict in the scene just for the sake of it, because the rules stae we should.

On reading various responses, it seems that this might have more to do with the choice of the conflict.  We'll have to experiment more to see if we can produce conflicts where the producer and the players dont both want the outcome to fall a certain way.

[stefoid]

thanks again warren, for your example.  Its not quite clear, but maybe just a typo, and  I have a further question.

you said the cop player looses.  I presume you meant the cop player won, because otherwise the kid would get hurt, right?  thats the typo (I hope, otherwise I am confused)

secondly, the producer wins narration.  what exactly does narration entail?  in your example, the cop player plays his character some more, but is it according to some narration that is not represented in the example, or what?

[Alan]

Hi Stefoid,

In PTA winning narration rights means winning buck stopping power on how the conflict plays out. The narrator can listen to suggestions from other players, but has final say on how the results decided by the cards occur.

In games I've played, usually the narrator brainstorms a resolution with the group and most of the "acting" quality of interactions just drop away.

In a really skilled group I can imagine an exchange like the one Warren described. The players would continue to describe actions and dialog for their characters -- with the understanding that they're just making suggestions and the narrator can take back or adjust things. I imagine that each statement would be made with eyes on the narrator to verify approval.

[Matt Wilson]

So it seemed like "why bother with this conflict stuff - everybody at the table wants this to fall a certain way, so why bother making a random event out of it?"

Because not knowing is part of what makes the game exciting. You care about what happens because you aren't certain that everything the protagonist wants will happen.

[Warren]

thanks again warren, for your example.  Its not quite clear, but maybe just a typo, and  I have a further question.

you said the cop player looses.  I presume you meant the cop player won, because otherwise the kid would get hurt, right?  thats the typo (I hope, otherwise I am confused)

Oops! Yes -- the cop player won!

secondly, the producer wins narration.  what exactly does narration entail?  in your example, the cop player plays his character some more, but is it according to some narration that is not represented in the example, or what?

What Alan said, but my example was more an illustration of how our group played:

In a really skilled group I can imagine an exchange like the one Warren described. The players would continue to describe actions and dialog for their characters -- with the understanding that they're just making suggestions and the narrator can take back or adjust things. I imagine that each statement would be made with eyes on the narrator to verify approval.

Yeah, we found that the "narrator" (we renamed that position the "director") got 'GM' rights over the end of the scene, more or less. All the players could still act out their characters as normal, but the narrator got the power of veto, and could direct how they wanted the scene to play out. Our group found this a more natural way of handling the narration responsibilities, but it's not 100% by the book, I guess.

So it seemed like "why bother with this conflict stuff - everybody at the table wants this to fall a certain way, so why bother making a random event out of it?"

Because, if the conflict is set up well, both winning and losing will both have kickass, engaging, interesting outcomes, and the group want to see which way things will go.

In the example, you could have the cop winning: Cool -- the bad guy gets away, but the streetkid is safe. How will the cop's superiors react when they found out about this? How will Bobby react to being 'saved' by this cop? (I'm guessing he's going to be proud and macho and so on.) How will the cop feel about not shooting? Will the bad guy use that against him in future encounters?

Or the cop could have lost, and Bobby gets hurt. In which case, awesome. There's going to be fallout from that, certainly. Will Bobby blame the cop, and go off the rails? Will he end up in hospital, and unable to attend the job interview the cop arranged for him? Will the cop blame himself for what happened? Depending on how the scene plays out, you've got a whole load of directions this could go, all of which are engaging and interesting.

[stefoid]

OK, thanks everyone for helping with this.

Matt, I think this is a VERY important part of your game and it could probably do with more time in your ruleset, just my opinion.  Perhaps it is because Im new to narrative play in general, this being my first narrative style game?

warren: the reason I asked about narration, is because it seems to be a case where things dont flow as expected, again, for our group.  Back at the start of if this thread, I mentioned that instead of just a one-liner agenda, our group kibitzed the agenda in detail for some time, and this kind of defused the 'acting' part of the scene, because protaganists had their moves mapped out ahead of time?   everyone here agreed that was the wrong way to go. 

So I see the same type of problem with the narration - if the narrator maps out in detail the resolution to the conflict, then it defuses the acting out of that resolution.  Thats not neccesarilly a bad thing I suppose, if there is more 'scene' to come after the conflict resolution, where the players are free to act for their characters once more?

this is my summary:

1) a player chooses location, focus and agenda (1 liner agenda)
2) players with characetrs in the scene act out those characters, while the GM acts out the NPCs
3) when a meaningful conflict is recognized, the GM calls it.  generally, the protaginists involved in the conflict should be rooting for what their protaginists want, and the GM should be concerned with opposing that.  The conflict should be framed in such a way as to result in a good story occuring either way
4) the player who wins narration maps out the resolution of the conflict
5) the players with characters in the scene act until the end of the scene is reached

[Warren]

this is my summary:

1) a player chooses location, focus and agenda (1 liner agenda)
2) players with characetrs in the scene act out those characters, while the GM acts out the NPCs
3) when a meaningful conflict is recognized, the GM calls it.  generally, the protaginists involved in the conflict should be rooting for what their protaginists want, and the GM should be concerned with opposing that.  The conflict should be framed in such a way as to result in a good story occuring either way
4) the player who wins narration maps out the resolution of the conflict
5) the players with characters in the scene act until the end of the scene is reached

The way we play, it was a bit different:

1) a player chooses location, focus and agenda (1 liner agenda)

1a) The GM looks at the Issues of the protagonists and the agenda of the scene, and thinks of ways to create tension. (Figuring out it would be good to bring Bobby into the scene, in our previous examples)

2) players with characters in the scene act out those characters, while the GM acts out the NPCs.

3) when a meaningful conflict is recognized, the GM calls it.  generally, the protagonists involved in the conflict should be rooting for what their protagonists want, and the GM should be concerned with opposing that.  The conflict should be framed in such a way as to result in a good story occurring either way

This is the big difference (again, I stress this is how we play, not exactly how the book puts it):

4) The player who wins narration rights can (optionally) give a rough direction for how they would like the scene to go. Not much more than a sentence -- something like "Hey,it would be cool if the bad guy recognises Bobby, and attacks him on purpose!" or whatever. Really short -- not 'mapping out'.

5) After resolving the conflict the players and GM continue to act the scene out, abiding by the result of the conflict (Bobby gets hurt, or won't, and so on.) The narrator can tell the rest that they want things to go in a certain direction, or veto another player, or whatever. We also allowed the narrator to take on the roles of some NPCs sometimes too.

6) The scene continues until the conflict has played out, and someone (usually the Producer or Narrator, in my experience) calls out "Cut!".

[stefoid]

This is the big difference (again, I stress this is how we play, not exactly how the book puts it):

4) The player who wins narration rights can (optionally) give a rough direction for how they would like the scene to go. Not much more than a sentence -- something like "Hey,it would be cool if the bad guy recognises Bobby, and attacks him on purpose!" or whatever. Really short -- not 'mapping out'.

5) After resolving the conflict the players and GM continue to act the scene out, abiding by the result of the conflict (Bobby gets hurt, or won't, and so on.) The narrator can tell the rest that they want things to go in a certain direction, or veto another player, or whatever. We also allowed the narrator to take on the roles of some NPCs sometimes too.

6) The scene continues until the conflict has played out, and someone (usually the Producer or Narrator, in my experience) calls out "Cut!".

so the scene ends when the conflict ends, or it depeneds on whats happening?   I presume the latter.  I can envisiage some scenes where the conflict happenes near the end and the scene ends when the conflict is resolved, and I can think of some scenes where the conflict happenes right at the start, is resolved one wya or another, but the scene continues to play out, probably concering the fallout of the conflict resolution.

[Warren]

I think Matt said something along of lines of "Finish the scene while the ink is still wet on it" -- in other words, once the conflict has been resolved one way or another, don't linger, but cut it, and move to the next scene. (Which can be related to the fallout of the conflict in this scene, obviously).

In our example "cop/bad guy/Bobby" scene, I would cut as soon as it was clear that we had shown that:

1) The bad guy has escaped.
2) Bobby has been injured (or not, depending on the outcome of the conflict.)
3) The initial reaction of the cop to events 1 & 2.

Once those have been "revealed" in play, this scene has done it's job, and hanging onto it to serves little purpose when you consider that this is taking time away from the next (hopefully conflict-loaded and awesome) scene. Like maybe the cop is at the station, explaining what has happened to his superiors. Or the cop is in hospital when Bobby's angry & upset mother turns up. Or the cop giving CPR to Bobby in the alleyway. Or you cut away to another character doing something cool. Or whatever.

This is just a way of keeping TV-style pacing (and one which works for my group). It's not a hard & fast rule or anything.

[SabreCat]

4) The player who wins narration rights can (optionally) give a rough direction for how they would like the scene to go. Not much more than a sentence -- something like "Hey,it would be cool if the bad guy recognises Bobby, and attacks him on purpose!" or whatever. Really short -- not 'mapping out'.

Ooh.  From the way things sound, it looks like this has worked out really well for you.  I'd be interested in hearing more examples of this.  The reason being that I'm in this tough spot where I recognize just how important narration rights are to the whole way PTA works, but I'm starting a series with a group where at least one player gets totally freaked at thought of having to "GM" anything.  Been trying to think of what to do about that, and maybe your method could prove a good compromise...