[PTA] Our first PTA game -- Chimera Fusion

[jlhburnett]

My group got together Wednesday night to play our first session of Prime Time Adventures.  We're mostly traditional gamers of the D&D, World of Darkness, (and of course QAGS) variety.  This would be our first foray as a group into "Forge-Baked" story-games.  We hadn't been able to game on a regular basis in over a year, and in that down-time I have been listening to podcasts and reading a lot of indie games, so I wanted to start off our new regular game night with something different.  After discussing a number of different games with my group, we all decided to try PTA (saving Full Light Full Steam and Donjon for later).

Last week we had our "pitch meeting" session. As a group we decide what kind of show we want to produce. I borrowed my son's big-huge pad of newsprint and we scrawled all our ideas on it with a sharpie as we brain-stormed.

We came up with ideas like a Buffy spin-off centered around the Cleveland Hellmouth, A David Lynch-ian series on suburban secrets, and some others. After a bit of nostalgic recollection on the old "After the Bomb" series of for the old Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles RPG, we came up with a series called Chimera Fusion.

Chimera Fusion, is a Sci-Fi Channel original series that takes place after some strange apocalypse has destroyed almost all of humanity while mutating most of the animal population. The protagonists are a band of mutant animals on the run in a zeppelin stolen from a Nazi-pastiche human empire  Over the course of the season, they'll explore the world and help people and maybe, just maybe, learn a little bit about themselves.

The protagonists include a mutant hippo named Scut who pilots the zeppelin. He wants to free his homeland which has been overtaken by a mutant T-Rex named Cesar and his horde of mutant velociraptors. There's also a mutant Kangaroo named Bardo who's our ninja/ranger type. His animal instincts have shattered into a separate personality that manifests inside his head. Bardo's main issue is his struggle to reconcile the human and animal halves of his psyche. Lastly we have the engineer, Samantha, a mutant sloth. She's a stoner/slacker with a giant pet gecko. Samantha is searching for the ultimate high.

So this week we played the pilot episode.  The pilot episode ended up being a lot shorter than I expected.  I started the episode with the protagonists stepping off prison trucks into the Fourth Reich's labor camp where they would be processed and assigned jobs.  A few quick cut-scenes also introduced the hopefully-reoccurring villain Colonel Klaus von Krieger working with Scut's nemesis Cesar the T-Rex.

The PCs immediately tried to escape the gulag.  Bardo went berserk and caused a riot as his "kangaroo id" took over. Scut attempted to hippo-charge through the Nazi guards while Sam used her sloth climbing skills to escape to the rafters.  The next few scenes involved the PCs alternately fighting and escaping the Nazis while somehow discovering that the Fourth Reich was building a fleet of zeppelin dreadnoughts (Dred Zeppelins).  Eventually, the protagonists were all recaptured in placed in adjoining cells, where they finally got around to talking to each other and establishing character a bit.

After a bit of character exposition, the protagonists managed to use some classic TV tricks to get the key ring from the guard and escape their cells.  Back in the zeppelin hanger, they used a bit of trickery and a PA system to get all the guards to leave while they hijacked the flagship of the zeppelin fleet.  Bardo discovered that the ship was armed with an rail-gun, which the protagonists used to destroy the rest of the zeppelins and blast their way out of the gulag.  The flew away as hydrogen explosions rocked the compound.  I had planned on a big dogfight scene towards the end of the session, but after that explosive exit, I decided to roll the credits there and save the ornithopter vs. blimp fight for a later episode.

This brings us to what I think our biggest problem is going to be with PTA.  There's a big paradigm shift we need to overcome going from traditional games to shared-narrative story games.  We're still looking at the "adventures" as missions to complete or enemies to defeat.  When sent to a prison camp, the first reaction is to immediately try and bust out.  We're also having trouble figuring out exactly how much control everyone should have in the narrative.  When should the Producer step in and say "I'm sorry, you can't kill every Nazi in the compound with one Conflict draw" for instance.

The episode went a lot faster than I expected.  We only played for maybe 2 hours, and no one got to set more than two scenes (some table talk ate up some of that time).  Still, we managed to introduce all the characters, their issues, a couple of antagonists, and get them their zeppelin.  We're all assuming that a non-pilot episode will probably last a bit longer.

Despite some bumps and birthing pangs, we all had fun and decided to continue with the season.  I have been told it can take a few sessions for PTA to really start to "click."  I'm confident that the next couple of sessions will go smoother, there's just going to be a bit of a learning curve.

[jlhburnett]

Chimera Fusion, Episode 1: "The Curse of the Golden Cog"

My game group couldn't get together for a few weeks due to weather and work and stuff.  However, we finally got to play our first regular episode of Chimera Fusion this Wednesday.  As I had hoped, this second session went a lot smoother.  The game is starting to "click" and were already starting to see how the story arc of the season will play out. 

One of the things I'm really enjoying about PTA is that the shared narrative is so important and the game is so improv-heavy that I don't need to do any pre-game preparation.  I spent about five minutes thinking of an opening scene to hook the players in and let the game roll.

Bardo and Scut had a Screen presence of 2 this episode, while Sam had a 1.  Bardo's spotlight episode is next week, so we agreed that most of this episode would be build up for that.  The players all decided that they wanted this episode to be dialog and character heavy, with few action scenes.

"The camera pans across the stony desert terrain of a the wastelands before focusing on Spike's Last Chance Bar & Grill.  A variety of motorcycles, dun buggies, and Road Warrior-looking vehicles are parked up front.  Te camera pans up, and you see a large zeppelin moored behind the ramshackle slat-wood building.  Inside, a variety of Chimera in dusty road clothes mull over their tables while Spike, a large mutant Porcupine grills vegetables behind the bar.  Bardo, Scut, and Sam are at a table, discussing their next move."

The heroes chatted for a bit, trying to decide where to go next, what to name the zeppelin, and whatnot.  The decided that with the Fourth Reich chasing them, they needed more weapons on the airship  Scut suggested tracking down his friend Uwe, a blimp engineer (one of his Connections).  About that time a mutant rat staggers into the bar, wanders over to the heroes table, gasps the words "Western Rock" and dies.  As he falls onto their table, a large golden cog rolls out of his coat.  He has no obvious injuries.  Cut to the opening credits.

The credit sequence was fun to play out as we all sat around the table singing synthesizer noises and describing explosions and glowing text.  The players decided not to bother assigning specific actors to their characters, but we decided that Colonel Klaus von Krieger would is played by Rutger Hauer.

After the credits, we cut back to Spike's Last Chance.  A this point, I had no idea what killed the rat or where the golden cog came from.  Those details would be worked out as the episode progressed.  Apparently, people die in Spike's bar all the time, so nobody seemed to care about the rat (indeed, there were several other dead bodies scattered across the room).  Sam managed to tuck the cog away while Scut tried to bribe some info about the local landscape out of Spike (slipped him a few "Nixons").

It was determined that the Western Rock is a local landmark, a 30-foot-tall monolith of red rock 60 miles into the Glowing Wastes.  Searching the rat's body, Sam managed to find a map, showing the Western Rock's location.  Scut's recalled a legend he had heard about "The Machine of the Gods" that was supposedly made of gold.  Since Uwe was 200 miles away and this Western Rock was only 60, the group decided to check out the monolith.  Sam and Scut went back to the zeppelin to prep for flight, while Bardo went about burying the rat's body.

While interring the rat, Bardo started to have a flashback about his own family's death.  He snapped out of his reverie when a rather large cobra bit him on the leg.  Bardo killed the cobra and staggered back to the ship.  The venom would trigger a number of hallucinations that would play an important part in Bardo's development.  While Sam and Scut searched the zeppelin for a snake bite kit, Bardo went through some vivid hallucinations, watching himself turn into a snake and seeing his family die yet again.  Bardo also determined that Cesar and his dino-slavers were also responsible for the death of his family, giving him something in common with Scut. 

We broke for commercial here and some of my players took a smoke break while I talked about Spirit of the Century.

When we came back, the team was flying onto the Glowing Wastes.  Scut had a nice monologue on the  bridge, detailing his hatred for Cesar and his determination to reclaim his village.  Bardo was slowly recovering form the snake bite, while Sam spent most of the time in the engine room smoking weed and listening to Bob Marley.  "Every Little Thing's Gonna Be All Right" became a kind of theme song for this episode, as it continued to pop up at odd times. 

One the way to the Western Rock, I tossed in the one action scene for the episode.  Colonel Klaus von Krieger in his heli-carrier (a modified U-boat)  sent a swarm of Nazi ornithopters to attack the zeppelin.  Bullets riddled the airship as the Scut took evasive action while Bardo manned the chain gun.  Eventually the heroes drove off the Nazis, but the zeppelin was badly damaged and made an emergency landing near the Western Rock.

The Western Rock was indeed a 30-foot tall monolith of weird red stone carved with runes no one recognized.  Stairs were carven into the base, leading underground.  Bardo stayed outside to guard the ship while Scut and Sam explored.  Inside the monolith, they discovered the remains of a camp site (presumably the dead rat's) and stairs leading up and down.  On the floor above, Scut and Sam discovered a large golden machine of odd design connected to shafts leading further up and down into the rock.  An open hatch showed where the golden cog had been removed.

Meanwhile, Bardo was lurking in the shadows outside when he noticed a short, wizened koala standing next to him, leaning on a big staff and wearing an old robe and a baseball cap.  "I assure you I'm quite real."  he said, bonking Bardo on the head with his staff.  "There's a storm a'coming, Bardo, and you're going to have to make a choice.  Whether you want to be an animal or a rational sapient.  There's gonna have to be sacrifices made.."  and several other cryptic warnings of the Yoda/Dungeon Master variety. Bardo listened to  what the koala had to say and pondered their importance. As the koala walked around the other side of the rock and disappeared, Bardo woke up on the dirt.  Apparently, it was all a dream.  Of course, he then found a ball cap in the dirt and felt the bumps on his head.  Or was it?

Back into the Rock, Sam managed to get the machine working.  Oil suddenly began to flow through the shafts up to old gas pumps on the top of the monolith.  Apparently, the Western Rock is an ancient airship station!  But who made it, and when?  An ancient race of koala mystics perhaps?  Regardless, the Western Rock will make a great base of operations from which to stage a rebellion against Cesar and his Nazi allies.

Next weeks on Chimera Fusion!
Bardo:  Screaming while firing a chain gun.  The barrel glows red hot and begins to melt.
Scut:  Screaming, drooling, spinning in circles on the floor of the bridge.
Sam: Staring blankly.  "Whoah!"
The Producer:  Scut's friend Uwe slammed into a desk by an angry dimetrodon.  "But I don't know any Scut Cloudwell!"

As I said, this game went a lot smoother than the pilot, and I was very pleased with how it turned out.  It's interesting to see how the villainous Cesar has developed.  I originally envisioned him as a kind of Dinosaucer-looking villain with a big eye patch and GWAR armor with a bug gun-sword on his back.  Instead, the players have made him more of a bond villain.  Picture a giant T-Rex in a smoking jacket and fez with a monocle and brandy snifter.

I get the feeling that were not doing the "stakes" mechanic right.  More often than not, this episode the stakes came down to me literally saying "If you win, you find something useful, if the producer wins you find something dangerous."  Still, it all seemed to work out well, and we all had fun, so no big deal.

[Eero Tuovinen]

This is entertaining to read, do write more when you play more, if you would.

I agree that worrying about stakes isn't necessary if you feel that the system is working as it should. In general, it's not a bad idea to concern yourself more with character advocacy than verbalized stakes - the crucial things are that a) the conflict result follows the intents of the character who won and b) the results are such that everybody is cool with resolving those particular things at this point in time. Often the simplest way of ensuring that both of those happen is stating the stakes out loud before doing the draw, but if the group knows each other and what they are interested in, then you might just as well leave the stakes unstated and only reveal them in the narration.

There is one large, specific benefit to discussing the stakes, though: sometimes a player might be a bit unclear about what the other party finds interesting in a scene. In these cases it's remarkably easier to ask them whether they're interested in their character's courage under fire, say, rather than who gets to be the one who saves the princess. If you don't know, your narration can't touch upon the important bits of the scene, and it might even prove that you'll end up resolving something the other player didn't want to resolve yet. But that's all it is about, communication - stakes do nothing for a group that manages to communicate their interests scene-by-scene in some other way.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

One thing I'm not seeing much of is an Issue for each character. A goal, sure, but not an issue. Maybe it's emerging through play itself, which isn't a bad thing, but I betcha that's the reason why you guys are finding yourself in problem-solving, mission-based mode. Play in PTA isn't so much about "can we bust out of the compound," as about "do I use my Animal or my Man side to accomplish this?" (the kangaroo guy does seem to have a tad more of this going on, which is why I mentioned it emerging through play)

I happen to be a bit of a foe of Stakes as presented in the second version of PTA; I prefer the examples from the first version, in which dice outcomes determine how stated intentions turn out, and nothing is pre-narrated. I think you'll do just fine without that feature. This is strictly a personal take on the rules and the game, on my part, offered for comparison rather than instruction.

Best, Ron

[Moreno R.]

I happen to be a bit of a foe of Stakes as presented in the second version of PTA; I prefer the examples from the first version, in which dice outcomes determine how stated intentions turn out, and nothing is pre-narrated. I think you'll do just fine without that feature. This is strictly a personal take on the rules and the game, on my part, offered for comparison rather than instruction.

Hi, Ron!

Having read and played only the second edition of PTA, and thinking about some problem I had with conflicts in PTA, this part got my interest. How did conflict work in the first edition?

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Moreno,

Well, don't get me wrong: PTA is a genius game, and I'm bringing this up only because it corresponds to a point made already. This isn't about me picking on the game in some blanket fashion for everyone.

The difference I'm pointing to mainly concerns the phrasing of the examples. In the first book, less was spoken by players/GM concerning what would be said/established upon resolving a conflict, before the mechanics go into action. In the second, as I read it, more is stated about "what will happen if ..." regarding the outcome, before the mechanics go into action. I still tend to play PTA more toward the former, and it looks to me as if Joshua and his group are doing the same. Since it works well, I'm suggesting to Joshua that they don't have to alter what they're doing.

Matt, if I'm mis-representing the editions, then step in and stop me ... also, if I find I'm doing that when I get home and check the books, I'll post to clarify.

Best, Ron

[Matt Wilson]

Man, I have got to keep better track of this forum.

Here's how, if I were to do a re-write, I would explain conflict in PTA.

Vincent recently made a post on his blog about the game following the fiction. I like PTA conflict to do the opposite. Instead of "roleplay for a while and then have a conflict and end the scene," have the conflict up front and use it as a guide for what you're roleplaying about. The conflict provides constraints.

Because you have the conflict way up front, it makes it harder to focus on minutia and easier to look at the issues. This scene it's about Matt's issue, which is maybe guilt about not posting in his forum often enough. Keep the question big and loose: "Does Matt's guilt fuck up the scene, or does it go well?" Everyone's responsibility is then to play out the scene with that in mind.

[Willem]

Wow. That makes it so simple. I'd almost given up on PTA because I felt I just didn't understand it well enough, but that makes me want to try it again.

Thanks.

[jlhburnett]

Wow, I should keep better track of the actual thread I started.  Thanks for the advice, especially from Ron and Matt.  Upon consideration, it's true that the players' "issues" are more like "goals."  It's a subtle difference that I didn't quite pick up on when I read the book.  Bardo the Kangaroo has indeed developed his Issue a bit better in play, but we haven't had much a chance to explore the other characters yet.

Ron's suggestion to set up the conflict on the beginning of the scene seems pretty golden.  I'm going to try that in our next game as part of the agenda declaration.

We haven't played for a few weeks.  Truthfully, my group has been distracted by "Arkham Horror" and various card cames, but we decided to blame our PTA hiatus on the writers' strike.  We did play episode two this Wednesday (Bardo's key episode) and it went swimmingly.  I'll have an actual play post as soon as I shift through my notes.

Hey, thanks again for all the feedback!

[jlhburnett]

Last week we played episode two of Chimera Fusion.  This was Bardo the kangaroo's focus episode, and Reamer (Bardo's player) and I both seemed pretty happy with its resolution.  His issue wasn't revolved, but it certainly took a big leap forward in its development.  Bardo is an action/adventure type of character, so we all went into the episode with the assumption that there'd be a number of action and fight scenes.

The game gets smoother each time we run it.  Unfortunately, I think some of my players are beginning to chafe against the Prime Time Adventures rules.  That's okay, though.  I can't expect all my players to like PTA as much as others.  Still the game has continued to remain fun, and concepts like scene framing have been useful additions to other games we've played.  After we're done with Chimera Fusion, I think I'm going to get them to try Dogs in the Vineyard once or twice.  I think my players will like the groovy dice-bidding mechanic.

Anyway, onto Chimera Fusion... Fusion... Fusion... Fusion....

I opened this episode a little differently.  The show opens with the characters running through the woods, obviously battered and tired, chased by a pack of Cesar's uzi-totting velociraptors. I haven't given the players any clue why or how they got there.  That's all up for them to decide either through exposition or (hopefully) flashbacks.  It's Bardo's focus episode, so the narrative gods are shining on him.  He uses some fancy hopping to leap the group across a large spiked chasm he had previously dug (using his "ninja-ranger trait"), shaking off the velociraptors who have to take the long way around.

Roll the opening credits with our A Capella synthesizer music and echo-effects.  Myke (Scut's player) declares that this episode's title is "Bad Joke? Answer: Yes!"  I comment that it sounds like the title of a  Slayers episode.

After the credits, the next scene was a flashback to two weeks ago at the ancient airship station the cast had discovered at the Western Rock in the last episode.  Scut and Sam are busy repairing the zeppelin, which has finally been named by Scut "Scuts R Us."   The R is backwards, and someone asks if Scut is Russian, which leads into a supposedly funny exchange that really didn't go anywhere.  Meanwhile, Bardo is checking out the shanty town that seems to growing around the station.  A lot of the refugees that normally congregate around Spikes Last Chance have started to gather around the Western Rock now.  Seems there's rumors that a trio of freedom fighters are building an army to take on Cesar and his Nazi allies.  A lone koala watches this all unobserved on the distant cliffs.  Bardo gets some moonshine from a couple of rats who've built a still.  At the end of the scene, the protagonists take off to check out the distress signal they got from Uwe at the end of episode one.

We cut back to the present, and the heroes are hunkered down in a cave, hiding from the velociraptors that are beating the bush outside, looking for them.  Scut decides to explored further into the cave, which seems to go back into the mountain for quite some distance.  He finds a metal disk set into the wall, with claw marks scratched all over it.  The disk has a logo on it and reads "The Swan Initiative."  Before he can do anything, though Scut is attacked from behind.  It's a band of mutant kangaroos, only thy look feral and primitive!  Scut drives them off and the 'roos retreat further into the caves.  Scut fiddles with the metal disk again, and a secret door opens up!

A new scene begins, and our three heroes walk through the secret door.  Golden/brass walls and and floors shine with brazen light, and crystal display screens glow blankly.  (I go meta for a moment and describe it to my players as looking like "Atlantean magi-tech.") It's some sort of ancient control room!    Control panels are written in ancient Kangarooese, but large steel lock-down barriers baring the Swan Agenda logo are placed over the controls, preventing access. 

Between Sam's engineering and Bardo's instinctive knowledge of Ancient Kangarooese, they manage to unlock the controls.  The screens come to life and show live camera feeds of the ruins of several ancient cities across the world.  One city, however, is occupied by kangaroos, and it seems to be in a cave--a cave very much like this one!  Looking through the logs, they discover a film featuring a Kangaroo scientist with pipe and lab coat describing something called the "Cultural Acceleration Program" (it plays like an 1950's educational film).  After a few minutes, the film cuts to a bloody and frazzled looking scientist, reporting that the Cultural Acceleration Program has backfired, and all the participants have reverted to a primal state.  The video ends.

Let me pause the recap here for a moment to discus something that came up after this scene.  When we set up this series, we decided that we had never stated how long ago the cataclysm that changed the world took place, not did we ever really decide on the nature of the cataclysm.  As children of the 80's who all watched The Road Warrior a million times growing up, I think we all kind of assumed it was a nuclear war and it only happened a few years ago.  With this scene, a new possibility occurred to us (and indeed the characters).  If there's been time for the rise and fall of an ancient Kangaroo society, the cataclysm (whatever it was) may have taken place a lot farther in the past than we (or the characters) realized.  At the risk of getting into Metamorphosis Alpha territory, it's possible they aren't even actually on Earth.  This is something I hope we decide pursue later in the series.

Back to actual-play...

Another flashback, and the heroes are stumbling drunkenly through the woods, hopped up on moonshine.  Apparently, one of them had just lobbed a stink-bomb into the tent of General Scourge, Cesar Rex's dimetradon second-in-command.  The heroes get into a scuffle. Bardo's "Kangaroo Id" takes over and he manages to tear up Scourge's back-sail pretty good, giving the NPC some nifty scars and earning the heroes a mighty new nemesis.  The heroes manage to break away from the dinosaurs and start running for shelter.  This leads to where the opening scene began.

We snap back to the present.  The party has split up, and Scut, for some reason that I've totally forgotten now and didn't write in my notes (sorry, Myke), is on top of the mountain, heading for where they parked the zeppelin.  His is pursued by velociraptors, and just as he thinks he's about to reach the safety of the ship, he notices that a number of those feral Kangaroos are already on board the zeppelin.  The 'roos overpower Scut, and the he blacks out just as the kangaroos begin to beat the crap out of the 'raptors.

We cut scene,and Sam is alone in the secret control room, seeing what else she can discover.  It turns out, the scientists of Joeyopolis (we were out of clever names) developed a technology using the power of "Hypno-Learning" (a word always spoken in a deep, dramatic voice) to increase the intelligence and culture of its citizens.  Something went wrong however, and the result is the unfortunate primitives that have been running around this entire episode. 

Sam's pet iguana, Stewart, accidentally steps on a button. A hidden panel slides open revealing a stash of high-powered energy weapons!  "Whoa," she says.  Sam's eyes light up, but before she can react, she is rendered unconscious by an ancient security robot assigned to guard the cache.  The scene ends with a close up of a video screen showing the robot carrying Sam into the ruined cave city.  Loyal lil' Stewart goes scampering for help.

While this has been happening, Bardo has been sneaking about the Kangaroo cave city.  He spots his friends held captive by the feral Kangaroos, tied to stakes in the town center.  Bardo looks for someone to help him, and finds a blind old wise-man (wise-kangaroo, whatever) named Bouncing Blindly.  Bardo strikes up a rapport with him.  Apparently, Bardo's friends had entered The Forbidden Zone (the control room) and must now be sacrificed.  It seems the primitive 'roos have a taboo against technology.  It only brought them war and misery in the past, and they are happier using nothing but their own teeth, feet, and claws.  Bardo eventually convinces the old shaman that a balance can be found between the feral and the civilized, and Bounces Blindly agrees to help Bardo convince the others to set Sam and Scut free.

Scut, however, has other plans. Using his mighty hippo strength, Scut breaks his bindings and runs away, leaving Sam behind.  He manages to get to the control room, where he spots the weapon cache.  We get a brief Rambo-esque equipping scene, and then Scut heads for the zeppelin once more.

It's about this time that General Scourge and the velociraptors attack the cave. 

Back to Joeyopolis, Bardo is giving a rousing Braveheart speech, trying to inspire the Kangaroos to take up arms against their attackers.  Of course, the elders of the city are against the entire idea, but several young warriors decide to go with him.  "I'll fight by your side, Bardo!"  "As shall I!" "Lead us, Bardo!"  etc. etc.  Sam leads them all to the control room, and equips the rag-tag army of primitives with high-tech energy weapons, because that sort of thing seemed to work okay in Battlefield Earth.

Now we come to the great big fight scene at the climax of the episode.  The 'roos leap into battle, lasers and plasma bolts a-blastin'.  The dinosaurs, have them heavily outnumbered though.  Scut, meanwhile, has a moment of indecision on the zeppelin.  He considers leaving his friends behind and saving his own skin, but after a moment of rolling on the cabin floor, he decides to turn around and help.  The zeppelin zooms in from the sky, cannons blasting at full power.

Bardo has found a railgun in the weapons cache, and blasts away with it.  Now all the players have fulfilled their "next week on Chimera Fusion" obligations.  As the energy weapons' batteries finally run dry, Bardo orders his troops "Now! Use your claws!" in an attempt to balance both technology and nature on the battlefield.  With vicious 'roo warriors on one side and a heavily armed airship on the other, the dinosaurs have no option but to retreat. General Scourge shakes his fist and vows vengeance.

And so victory was won for the day.  The young warriors that fought along side Bardo ask to come along with him.  The elders warn against this, but the heroes take them anyway.  Now their growing refugee settlement at Western Rock has an army and plasma blasters.  Roll credits.


We were all pretty happy with how this episode went.  As I said earlier, the mechanics got smoother and smoother, and everyone got to set up several different scenes.  The story arc for the next episode is 1-1-2 (with Sam as the 2), so it promises to be a lot more laid-back.  One of my players suggested skipping that episode entirely, but I recommended against it. 

[jlhburnett]

I forgot to mention, at the big climactic fight scene, in stead of letting the high-card player narrate the scene, I let each player describe a snippet of what became a great big battle montage.  The technique worked well.

The actual card draws weren't to see if they won or loss the battle.  I had already told the players they were going to win.  Instead, the cards were used to see if they got out of the figt with ot without any nasty injuries that would stick with them for an episode or two.  Bardo got out of it okay.  Scut broke his foot, and Sam's pet iguana got his tail shot off.