[PTA] "Rockheart"

[Territan]

It's the barest shred of a concept, for a group that's awfully indie-ambivalent, but there might be potential in it. Could I get a little help polishing it up, please?

The series title is "Rockheart," and the theme is, "How far would you go to keep a secret?"

The series is set around several strangers whose lives were intertwined when the place they were staying—the Heartrock Resort, Spa, and Casino
(yes, juxtaposed)—mysteriously burned to the ground one night. As time and investigations march on, it becomes clear that they had other connections that they didn't even know about.

Am I right in understanding that even if I have not just a clear picture but an animated diagram / timeline, the concept will still be at the mercy of the players who win narration? I can probably work with that, I just want to know how much work not to put into it.

[Matt Wilson]

Hey Territan.

Did you ask this question on a different board? I have a hazy memory of talking about this already.

Why polish the series idea here? Polish it with the people in your gaming group. Get their investment in it by including them in the process. That's what the game is about.

And yes, you will have much less control over what happens in play than you would in some other games. I wouldn't think of it as being at someone's mercy, though. It's collaborative.

[Territan]

Hey Territan.

Did you ask this question on a different board? I have a hazy memory of talking about this already.

Nope, this is my first time posting about it on this particular subboard... (...checks...) ...yeah. I've only had posts on two other subforums on The Forge, and they're on alumni boards that have since gone Inactive.

I should probably have expected someone else would have asked this question already; my bad for not going back through the archives, but I didn't know what precisely to look for.

Why polish the series idea here? Polish it with the people in your gaming group. Get their investment in it by including them in the process. That's what the game is about.

And yes, you will have much less control over what happens in play than you would in some other games. I wouldn't think of it as being at someone's mercy, though. It's collaborative.

Maybe I have too much expectation as a storyteller GM (one who seeks to draw the players through and experience a story from the inside) rather than as a combatant or challenger. I have what I consider a cool concept, and would like to see the players play through it.

The number one hurdle: my gaming group. There's a rather unfortunate prejudice against trying lots of little games; if it's going to be something they play once and never go back to again, everything has to be pregenerated and prechewed, all the grunt work done by the GM first, which means that even when it finally runs the players are going to be less attached to the story than they would be if they'd taken the time to participate.

Maybe a better question would be, "Is there anything I should know before pregenerating characters?"

[relaxingnap]

Hi Territan,

I'm new to PTA myself, but it does take some getting out of the mindset of other game-mastered RPGs. The story creation is collaborative, which is central to what the game is all about.

Two reasons to spend a big chunk of time as a group in the Pitch Session:

--> this is the game -- the collaborative brainstorming of the series idea -- not just prep

--> the Pitch brainstorm session is a way for each player to be fully excited and invested in the series and their character.

Without the Pitch session and that excitement, the players are less likely to be attached to the characters and the show. The game then suffers.

You could of course hack the game for the reasons you describe, except that the game mechanics are thoroughly collaborative in storytelling. When it comes a players turn to narrate a conflict resolution or play a scene, if they aren't bought in and emotionally invested and excited, then the quality of play will drop. Getting that excitement and investment are the point of the Pitch session.

I like your series idea, but what if you went into the game, presented your idea, and then collaborated with the other players back and forth to create a series that everyone likes? Your idea might get even better, and go places you hadn't even imagined. That is the brilliance of creative collaboration.

And since the Pitch session needs a 'click' moment before proceeding to the series, you are assured that if the group proposes something you don't like, you get to come back with the changes you suggest, and it goes back and forth until all the players are on board with a series.

It's a very different mindset from traditional RPGs. If you are really wanting to do your series, you should probably pick up a different RPG system to use, because the collaborative storytelling is built into the guts of the PTA mechanics.

Not that I'm an expert on PTA -- trying to figure it out more before I play -- but these points are pretty clear and are a big part of what PTA is all about.

Good luck!

-- Will Hall

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Matt, I'm interested to know if I have this right, so I don't run around misrepresenting the game.

I wanted to focus on that one question:

The series is set around several strangers whose lives were intertwined when the place they were staying—the Heartrock Resort, Spa, and Casino
(yes, juxtaposed)—mysteriously burned to the ground one night. As time and investigations march on, it becomes clear that they had other connections that they didn't even know about.

Am I right in understanding that even if I have not just a clear picture but an animated diagram / timeline, the concept will still be at the mercy of the players who win narration?

I think you're not right about that - which as I understand your post, is good news. When a player wins narration, that does not mean he or she can screw around with established back-story, the material that you have prepped and have not yet revealed. Narration is about narrating how this particular conflict turns out. Conflicts concern what characters are doing, not about whether it was the butler or the maid who killed the sheriff.

Let's say there are two characters, Mutt and Jeff, and let's say the particular episode begins with finding the body of the sheriff. For whatever reason, Mutt and Jeff are deeply involved in finding out who killed him. Mutt meets a person, or let's say a talking dog just for fun, who seems to know something about it, but is also hostile and dangerous. Perhaps there arises a conflict which is, pretty much, a fight scene. The player states that if Mutt wins the conflict, the dog tells him about the murder.

1. Let's say Mutt wins and the GM gets narration. No problem, right? The GM has the dog tell what he knows. (As a side note, in this game, it's a bad idea to GM in such a way that you need to hold onto secrets for a long time and fully control their release.)

2. But what if Mutt wins and the player gets narration? And what if he says, "The dog tells me that the maid killed the sheriff!" This is your disaster scenario, right? You've already prepared the material that the butler killed the sheriff. Do you suddenly have to change your whole preparation, and the story of the murder, and everything?

As I understand the game, I don't think you do. I see two ways to handle the #2 situation.

First way (easiest): Limit narrations so they affect only what NPCs do, not the content of what they say. So the player can say, "The dog tells me what he knows about the murder," and you fill in the content based on what you have prepared what the dog knows. The cards gave the player the authority over deciding what the dog does (tells him what he knows), but not over what the dog says. You as GM are constrained to be honest, to obey the cards, and to have the dog really tell what he knows.

Second way (a bit harder but often more fun): Using the same logic, actually, the narration does control what the dog says, but everyone at the table should understand that this is still what the dog is choosing to say in the moment, not necessarily the same as saying who really killed the sheriff. In other words, when the player says, "The maid killed the sheriff!", everyone knows that if you, the GM, prepared that someone else killed the sheriff, then the dog will be lying. This is sort of interesting - you do, probably, have to come up with a reason for the dog to lie. But notice that you do not have to tell the players that he is lying. By choosing to narrate this way, the player is basically inviting, even forcing you to play this NPC as being deceptive.

Again, Matt, let me know if I'm on the right track.

Best, Ron

[Territan]

Hello,

Matt, I'm interested to know if I have this right, so I don't run around misrepresenting the game.

I wanted to focus on that one question:

The series is set around several strangers whose lives were intertwined when the place they were staying—the Heartrock Resort, Spa, and Casino
(yes, juxtaposed)—mysteriously burned to the ground one night. As time and investigations march on, it becomes clear that they had other connections that they didn't even know about.

Am I right in understanding that even if I have not just a clear picture but an animated diagram / timeline, the concept will still be at the mercy of the players who win narration?

One minor problem -- it wasn't Matt that asked that question. Matt is in fact the moderator of this group because he's the designer.

As for my question, yeah, you have some good ideas there. As it happens, though, I may not get a chance to use them for a while. Somewhere along the line the dynamic of the group has gotten a little dysfunctional. It might make an interesting thread for another board, but my problems aren't so much with the game now as the people who I'm (theoretically) trying to run it for.

[Ron Edwards]

My first sentence in the post was addressed to Matt, not to you. I want to make sure I'm not misrepresenting the game with my answer, and only he can tell us.

I was definitely unclear in my organization of the first few sentences. I should have begun the "I wanted to focus" part with your username, to distinguish it from the first paragraph (to Matt).

I'm glad you found my post interesting and I look forward to Matt confirming or correcting what I wrote.

Best, Ron