[PTA] Post-apocalyptic series staring tonight, please advise (long)

[Roy Batty]

My crew and I are embarking tonight on the Pilot of our new PTA series.  It's this group's first game together, and my first time GM'ing in many a moon, so any advice would be most welcome!  I'd especially appreciate any ideas for kickers, bangs, hooks, etc. story wise, to get me armed up for the players coming tonight!  Advice for running PTA would also be wonderful.

Last week we worked out the series and the characters.  The idea we settled on started with the "underground railroad" of Half-Life 2.  For those who aren't familiar, the thought was basically to center on a revolutionary/insurgency cell, working to survive within/undermine a brutal, fascist state.

There was a lot of interest during the brainstorming regarding the state using a threat to justify their brutality and resource hogging, and having a central question of the series be answering whether this threat is real or imaginary, and the characters' relationship to the threat (i.e. is their colony the threat itself?).

Our initial thought was that the series takes place on a planet that is earth-like, but to take the series off of our familiar geography and history, to allow for maximum narrative flexibility.

More brainstorming brought in the idea that the state is in some ways an echo of the Dark Ages European states, living in the shadow of a mightier, and perhaps more enlightened empire.  Technology from these Precursors remains, but is only poorly understood.

One of the themes that I'm most excited about is that the current, brutal state wishes to bring about a renaissance, but the enhanced intellectual freedoms required to rekindle that flame are contrary to their methods of control, hence leaving them in a catch-22.

For the Protagonists' colony, a central conflict will be convincing the simple folk that rather than living under the familiar grinding boot of the empire, they must risk everything to free themselves (ala Seven Samurai, Bug's Life, etc etc.)

The technological spread looks like this: the Precursors tech, when it can be found, is simple, slick, and aesthetically pleasing.  The current empire's tech is bulky, dirty, and ugly, ala steampunk.  The PC's colony is well below even this, using little beyond simple farm equipment, and the odd piece of requistitioned tech.
   
Protagonists

Our first protagonist is a "tech-priest;" a shamanic figure for his village with a knack for getting things working, including Precursor tech.  His Issue is atonement; at some point, he destroyed another village by accident, somehow with poorly understood techonology.  Thus he's reluctant to use his ability.  For a Connection, he has a pocket A.I. of precursor techonology.  Played by Willem Dafoe.

Our second protagonist is a "mystery-man."  He remembers little of his past, but has a prothetic limb of Precursor origin.  What little of his past he knows, he learned from a mentor who hinted at much, but explained little.  (I tried to warn this player that keeping everything a mystery may make it difficult to write the character appropriately into scenes).  Played by Adrian Brody.

Our last protagonist is a field commander from the empire.  He comes into the story because he's sent to find a Precursor artifact in the village.  It's a test of his waning loyalty, and his crisis will come when he finds it's actually the arm of Protag #2.  Played by Ralph Fiennes.

A few other random plot thoughts, not yet discussed with the players...

A cave located near the village houses collected knowledge of the old empire (emergency knowledge library, tech-priest's AI only works (or only works well) inside the cave?)

This would push the show in a much more supernatural direction, so I'm not sure whether this'll fly, but here's another thought...

The vault was sealed, and its makers put locks in place that would insure it could not be reopened merely for plunder.  The locks were made such that they can only be opened by the awakened mind.  Telekinesis and telepathy are required (only the inner vault?  Has the tech-priest's character seen the full contents?  Still a mystery?  Could the pocket AI still work, at least partially, from the outer vault, or merely in proximity?)

The empire uses the awakened, drugs them, uses them as dogs to hunt down others, to build up their community, which they hope to control.

Our current title for the series: Fracture.  I also like Past Zenith.

Sorry for the long post.  For anyone still reading, I'd love to hear your thoughts!

(Cross-posted on RPG.net)

[Roy Batty]

Here's my second take on the title sequence. It's quite a mishmash, but I think it'll help to get a feel for the game. I'm surprised I've never seen anyone do this for PTA before.

Here's the low res version.

And the high res version.

[hix]

Roy, that was great! Was that something from the Passion soundtrack you were using as the theme music?

[Roy Batty]

Thanks hix!  The song is actually "Baltar's Dream" from the season 2 soundtrack for Battlestar Galactica.  The trailer was a lot of fun to put together.  We played through the first half of the first episode on Monday; I'll post details soon.

[Roy Batty]

   So we played our first session of Primetime Adventures last night, and it was pretty friggin sweet.

   A quick guide to names: the tech-priest is Ezekiel, the political officer from the Bureau is Major Thornquest, and the guy with the cyberarm is Kin.

   The episode opens with an establishing shot of Ezekiel's village; we see their simple, low-tech, but relatively happy existence, shown through slice of life shots of the villagers going about their business.  Finally we come to a long shot of the bustling village that pulls further and further back, until the camera takes in Major Thornquest and his scary, military recon squad overlooking the village.  The shot ends with Thornquest telling his squad to move in.

   We then cut to a dirty and cloaked Kin, coming to the door of Ezekiel's workshop.  Kin knocks on the door, and after peeking out the window and seeing the rather untrustworthy looking character on his doorstep, Ezekiel gruffly asks Kin what he wants.  They argue through the doorway, with Kin finally displaying his cyberarm, and begging Ezekiel to open the door for fear of that he's been followed.  This does little to win the confidence of suspicious Ezekiel, and finally in panic Kin pounds on the door with his cyberarm hard enough that all the shop's windows shatter.  Realizing that whatever risk Kin represents will only be compounded by the racket he's making, Ezekiel reluctantly lets Kin inside.

   At this point we knew that Major Thornquest's squad would be coming shortly, so we set up the stakes for the scene.  Ezekiel's stakes: whether he keeps the cave under his shop that contains a Precursor cache secret (lost).  Thornquest's stakes: does word of his imminent defection from the Bureau will get out (lost)?  Kin's stakes: does he find a clue about his identity (won)?

   The scene's narration: Kin presses Ezekiel for any info. he might have about the origin of his arm as he looks around the shop.  Seeing a piece of Precursor tech, Kin picks it up with his cyberarm, which suddenly springs open and absorbs the piece.  In shock, Ezekiel tells Kin he'd seen another person with an almost identical cybernetic arm some months back, but instead of the right arm, it was his left. 

   Suddenly Thornquest's squad arrives, pounding on the door.  They enter and snoop around, using equipment to look for the Precursor tech's signature.  In the process Thornquest uncovers both Ezekiel's pocket A.I. and the trapdoor that leads to the Precursor cache, in a cave below the workshop. 

   Then, as Kin is trying to sneak out of the shop before he's detected, one of the soldiers stops him at gunpoint.   Kin's arm is revealed, and he's ordered to his knees.  Thornquest radios for instructions, unsettled to have found the artifact attached to someone's shoulder.  Orders come back to kill Kin and take the arm.  His promotion hungry lieutenant is only too happy to carry out the order, but Thornquest hesitates, trying to buy time.  One of his soldiers now holds his weapon up to Thornquest himself.  Kin is in a cold sweat now, radiating animal fear.  The lieutenant moves efficiently to Kin, puts his pistol to Kin's head, and pulls the trigger. 

   Cue action sequence: as time slows, we can hear Thornquest arguing.  The camera zooms to the pistol's hammer.  In the fraction of a second between the trigger being pulled and the hammer falling, Kin's arm leaps to life, and severs the lieutenant's gun wielding arm, then throws him through the wall.  Realizing that trouble is now unavoidable, Ezekiel activates his shop's defenses through the A.I.; a turret drops from the ceiling and opens up on the soldiers.  Between Ezekiel, Thornquest, and Kin, the soldiers left in the shop are all killed, but the lieutenant escapes, perhaps to return as a nemesis.

   Moving more quickly now, our three protagonists go down to the outer chamber of the cache in the caves below the shop.  Stakes--Ezekiel: does he have time to gather the equipment and supplies he'd like to bring (lost)?  Thornquest: can he push the three to move fast enough to avoid hot pursuit, and to thereby leave a relatively cold trail (won)?  Kin: can he convince his companions to use the Precursor underground tunnels that he's explored in the past (won)?  Thus the scene is narrated as Ezekiel being menacingly reminded by Thornquest that there's always a B-squad, so they leave in a hurry.  Kin succeeds in convincing them to use the underground tunnels, given the extreme risk of using an overland route.  The outer chamber of the cache has an access tunnel that Ezekiel had long since given up on ever opening.  Kin walks over to it, and as he places his cyberarm to it, it activates, spreads out, and opens the seal.

   Miles into the tunnels, the three meet someone of the tribe who live here, whom Kin knows.  Kin assures the two the man can be trusted; the man promises he can show them the way to the merchant city nearby.  They follow him for miles more before coming to a large chamber where several of his tribesmen are gathered.  Their guide tells them to rest here; when they respond that they want to keep moving, the tribesmen unsheathe weapons and tell the protagonists it wasn't a request. 

   I can't remember most of the details for the next time on, only Kin's player described a scene of two people sitting around a fire, discussing a city where Precursor tech still works, perhaps kept functioning by a living Precursor.  Perhaps one of my player's can chime in here.

   A couple of quick comments: I had a blast playing.  It was the first time I'd run a game in a long long while where I felt comfortable.  I really love Primetime Adventures' mechanics and division of labor.  Given the collaborative method of series generation, I definitely feel like we're all "buying in" together in the concept and storyline.  And I love just letting the players put the story together, and chiming in merely with details to punch things up, or to keep things moving.  Brilliant.
      
   Things were a bit rough in spots, but not unusually so. 

   I only had a rough idea of where the episode would start from based on last week's pitch session, but the entire group hashed out the specific details of the opening together as we started.  This was a bit awkward at first.

   I definately think our stakes for the first conflict were much better than the latter two.  I'd love to hear suggestions/comments on this.

   No one used any fan mail, in spite of my revised character sheets and spiffy fan mail cards.  I'll push that harder next time.   Oh, and here's a relationship map for the game.

[Roy Batty]

Crickey, not sure what happened with the hyperlinks. 

Character sheets are here:http://i167.photobucket.com/albums/u122/GnomeChomsky/Primetimeprotagonist-sheet2.jpg
Fan mail cards are here: http://i167.photobucket.com/albums/u122/GnomeChomsky/FanMailfron4.jpg
Relationship map is here: http://i167.photobucket.com/albums/u122/GnomeChomsky/RelationshipMapcopy.jpg