PTA Convention Games

[scottdunphy]

I was introduced to "Primetime Adventures" at Compleat Games in Colorado Springs. They host an Indie RPG Night on the first Sunday of every month. I'd heard of the game through the Sons of Kryos so I was eager to play. J-M, the store's manager, was the producer and he did a fantastic job. It was a three-hour game and in that time we went from a blank whiteboard to playing through the pilot. I immediately bought the game.

I primarily write and GM character-provided events at local conventions in Denver, CO. I've been doing this for 6+ years and I'm part of local organization that is dedicated to writing and running these type of events at conventions. Our goals are to encourage great roleplaying through our events. While PTA is quite a bit different in execution than most of the games we run, it has many of the same goals and fits well into a four-hour convention slot.

So at Genghis Con 07 on Labor Day weekend, I ran my first PTA game. I didn't discover PTA until after the program book was out, so it was a last minute add, but luckily I got six players through word of mouth. It was an absolutely terrific event! Everyone had a blast and the three players I talked to at dinner after the con said it was the best game they played at the con.

PTA is brilliant. Thank you Matt. If you never wrote anything other than PTA you'd still be one of the greatest RPG designers/writers of all time.

Now that the setup and the gushing are out of the way, I'd like to discuss how I approached running PTA at a con and what I plan to do better/different next time. I owe a lot to J-M who ran it so well for me first and a lot of this approach was originally his.

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PS - I read the previous thread on PTA con events and I was going to reply to it but the forum advised me to start a new thread...and I pretty much do whatever the computers tell me to.

[scottdunphy]

[Sorry, hit the post button by accident. What's with no editing?]

1) Used a whiteboard to write down everyone's ideas as they came flying. It's a great tool for the pitch session. Luckily the con rooms had whiteboards. I would advise bringing one (or a writing easel) if your doing this at a con.
2) Ran it as a pilot so everyone had equal screen time. I know I wouldn't want to sit down to a four-hour con session to find out that my character would play a minor role in the game.
3) I didn't bring any of my own ideas. I think when people know they have only four hours (and it will be over in four hours) they are very willing to work with each other towards a common goal. I also think it's critical to get the players invested in the concept and the characters, that's one of the great strengths of PTA.
4) We started with "Premise", "Tone", and "Setting" to determine what the show would be about.
5) Took about an hour for pitch and characters creation and played the pilot for 2+ hours.
6) We took several breaks, many more than I would normally take in a four-hour convention slot. Everyone came back to the table with great new ideas!
7) I tried to make all the conflict about character issues. It's a convention scenario that no one's planning to play again, so if they play out their issue during the pilot that's actually a great thing.
I jumped back and forth between characters/scenes quite a bit, cutting away at dramatic points to keep the tension. I've done this before in Star Wars games and other scenarios, so this might be an experience thing, but give it try!
9) I finished with a twist ending. That was mostly luck, but it had a great effect and I'd try to do it again in the future.

[I don't know why I numbered the list above. The numbers have no meaning.]

For next time I plan on making one-page summaries of character creation tips/examples for the players since explaining those things took a while and was more individual than the pitch session. Is there a resource out there for this already?

I'm thinking of running four sessions of PTA at Genghis Con 08 in Devner, CO on President's Day weekend [I couldn't edit the above post and Genghis Con 07 should have been Tacticon 07 this past weekend].

Thanks!
Scott

[hix]

Chrisn made some reminder cards for PTA. The link is here:

http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=22062.0

[scottdunphy]

Chrisn made some reminder cards for PTA. The link is here:

http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=22062.0

Thanks. That's a useful tool too, but I was looking for a sheet I can handout that has lists of Issues, Edges, and Conncetions so that the players have a lot of examples to work from. I just read some of the book examples aloud and it worked fine but I think it's an area I can make easier for this type of one-shot convention game. PTA is an extreme departure from the type of games that are normally available at conventions so I can't just hand them a PTA Protaganist sheet and expect anything other than blank stares. I'm guessing most groups go through this when they first try PTA, but I'm running it for 5 people I may not know from Adam and I've only got one slot to get it all done.

From Claudia Cangini's previous thread, it seems there haven't been a lot of folks running PTA at their local cons. I didn't see anyone else saying "This is what worked for me at my local con" - even Matt's post didn't reference any con experience - so I'm kind of wondering if maybe she's the only other person who has run PTA at a convention. Is that a false impression? If it's true, why aren't folks running it at cons?

[Remi Treuer]

Welcome to the Forge, Scott!

PTA is one of my go-to games at Cons (and one of my favorite games, period). I've run it at Camp Nerdly and GoPlay Southeast, which, granted, are centered on games of PTA's ilk, and I've run it at NCGameday, which is not. I've also run it for a group that was entirely new to gaming (outside of a Con, though). It has been extraordinarily successful in each of those settings. I think the reason it's not run more often at some Cons is for exactly the reason you state at the beginning of the thread: PTA is very well known amongst a certain group of gamers, and largely unknown outside of that group. If you went to Dreamation, or Camp Nerdly, or a Go Play event I'm sure you could find a PTA game, though.

I would be wary of a big list of issues, edges, and connections, as those should be tied to the major themes and setting of the game. I don't have the book in front of me, but it has a number of examples of Pitches and characters that were generated from those pitches, aren't there? I think that would give a more holistic view of how the game work, instead of encouraging people to just try to find something that's 'good enough' off a big list.

I've found that those PTA play aids are super-helpful in facilitating play, moving it forward, and making sure everyone knows where they are, procedurally, in the game. Bring 'em next time you run the game, and I think you'll find it's aces.

[scottdunphy]

Welcome to the Forge, Scott!

Thanks! Never really thought I'd be here. I read some Forge threads a few years ago and decided to stay far away. But PTA's here so I'll just keep to this section and probably be okay (I hope).

So, at NCGameday when you have a player that has never heard of PTA, story games, indie games, etc, how do you explain edges/connections and how do you move them through that step in the protaganist delevopment process? I didn't have much trouble at Taction this past weekend, but I've got a sample size of one now and my convention instincts from 7 years of GMing at cons tells me I got a great table of players who picked up the concepts pretty quick and I won't always be so lucky. Am I wrong? Is it always this easy? Are there any PTA con event horror stories? I hope the answers are yes, yes, and no!

I think the reason it's not run more often at some Cons is for exactly the reason you state at the beginning of the thread: PTA is very well known amongst a certain group of gamers, and largely unknown outside of that group. If you went to Dreamation, or Camp Nerdly, or a Go Play event I'm sure you could find a PTA game, though.

I'm probably never going to any of those. Nor am I likely to be at Origins or Gencon in the near future. So is anyone working on getting PTA to more regional/local cons? As your examples demonstrate, it's a very easy game to teach/learn/love with a very broad appeal. Seems a shame to bottle it up at speciality cons.

I would be wary of a big list of issues, edges, and connections, as those should be tied to the major themes and setting of the game. I don't have the book in front of me, but it has a number of examples of Pitches and characters that were generated from those pitches, aren't there? I think that would give a more holistic view of how the game work, instead of encouraging people to just try to find something that's 'good enough' off a big list.

That's not my intent at all, but that's a good cautionary note. I did read aloud the example lists from the book and I don't think anyone directly picked from any of the lists. Also, I wouldn't even hand out a list like that until we were mostly through with the pitch and had determined a premise, setting, and tone for the show (I didn't give out character sheets until we reached that point). I think once they have those things they will be looking for edges/connections that fit the show. The examples would be to facilitate what kind of things edges and connections can/should be. These will be radically new concepts to most of the people sitting down out my tables (i.e. we aren't at Dreamation) and I think I need to prime the pump with something.

Maybe I just need to give them a sheet with strong definitions and instrcutions on how to make their characters? The group explanation approach worked fine, but a lot of people learn and understand better by reading and I want to have both methods available.

Thanks!
Scott