We played PTA again last night. The idea was to test the recent changes in the rules. I wasn't sure where your notes on the rules change was, however. Could you send it to me again, or post them here, Matt?

What we did to try to emulate what I believe your idea involved was to simply say that each scene had to have some conflict that at least one player character was involved with. If it was PC v PC, then the characters would roll off; otherwise, it was a roll against the Producer. This worked pretty well. In fact, what happened was that the discussion of the "agenda" for the scene usually got replaced with a discussion of what the conflict was going to be. This had an interesting and, I think, positive effect. It made the scenes really short. What would happen is that we'd come up with the contest, narrate character actions to get up to the point where we had to roll, and then the winner would narrate the rest of the scene for the most part. In about 2.5 hours (actually less I think), we got done 12 scenes, an entire episode.

I've included questions in the description of play below in the context in which they came up.

Here's the setup:

I don't remember if we ever came up with a title. I seem to remember "Miskatonic" being bandied about. But in any case, the concept for the show is basically Cthulhu Now at Miskatonic University in Arkham Mass. Complete with the "Fighting Cephalopod" mascot, but meant to be more creepy than comic like Buffy. Generally more adult (no, not that way). In fact, the decision was made not to allow any students as PCs, and to keep it about the faculty at the university. Also, we said that the show was designed to air on HBO, which said a lot about what was allowed and what wasn't.

We ran a pilot episode previously, but it was cut short. So we decided to say that the pilot was never completed or aired, and so we had to establish everything over again. In doing so, Josh decided to dump his old janitor character for his new one below. The other two characters remained the same from the partial pilot.

Producer - Mike
Dr. Pamela Wilson - Julie
Pam is a professor of biochemistry and an occultist trying to rationalize her science views and her knowledge of the occult.

Professor Will Holloway - Josh
Will is the new history prof, and a rationalist. As such, his issue will be trying to rationalize his view of the world as rational with what he'll discover at Miskatonic.

John Jaworski - Ryan
John is a Delta Green operative who has been assigned to investigate MU. He's posing as a biochemistry teaching assistant and grad student (he has credentials in the area) in order to blend in.

Here's a rundown of the scenes:
Scene 1 - John interviews with Pam in her office
Director (Framer): Mike
Conflict: Julie wants Pam to get that something is up with John; Ryan wants John to remain innocuous.
Outcome: Tie. We decided that Pam is somewhat suspicious, but not too much. Certainly not enough to not hire him.
Question: What's supposed to happen on a tie? The rules don't say anything about it. They are quite common. Yes, the "fact" mechanics help, unless, as in one case, the players all roll no evens. We ruled that neither side got the advantage, and we all worked out what happened together.

Scene 2 - Madeline vamps Will in her office as he comes to see her putatively to get help with paperwork
Director: Josh (his character had a 2 Screen Presence for the episode and the others had 1, so Josh sat to my left, and we went clockwise)
Conflict: Madeline Whately (played by Rose McGowan - I cast all of the NPCs) is another member of the faculty, a contact of Pam's, in fact, who is deep into the occult and actual Mythos - you'll all recognize the last name. As Will is "Attractive" as an Edge, we established in the pilot that she's out to get Will.
Outcome: Can't remember. Didn't seem that important, as it was more to just establish the tension there.
Question: How large is the budget? There are a number of ways to read it. Seems just missing to me. I remembered that you wanted to have only 2 dice for the producer, base, Matt, and went with that. But then it says that the producer can add from one to three dice. Is there a pool (the budget) from which this is supposed to come? Or does the Producer just choose each time? Josh surmised that it meant that there were three dice total, which is what we went with.

Scene 3 - Will finds John in the Library reading up on the history of the University in the school paper, "The Tentacle."
Director: Ryan
Conflict: Having will see that what John was doing was odd.
Outcome: Don't remember, but I don't think Will got anything too useful on John. He ended up offering to help John out with any other history inquiries he wanted to make.
Question: At this point I remembered Fan Mail. We had a discussion on when to award it. Frankly all but the first suggestion in the text seem useless. We decided that if the scene addressed a present character's central issue as decided by all, then it got a point of FM. This still seems a tad problematic in terms of incentives. Can you think of any other way to get FM into play?

Scene 4 - Pam, suspicious of John, uses magic from formulae on chalkboard to see through time and space to spy on John
Director: Julie
Conflict: Having her catch John doing something out of place
Outcome: John won handily, and was narrated as just going over some class prep. Pam is annoyed to not have gotten anywhere.

Scene 5 - Dr. Maximillian Shaw (Julian Sands), professor of Cryptozoology comes by with a specimen for Pam to test, and she calls in her Occultist friend Amanda (Kim Catrall) to help.
Director: Mike
Conflict: Figuring out something about the specimen.
Outcome: Pam won, and I told them that whatever it was it's metabolism was affected heavily by Nitrites, and Amanda remembered something about that in the German version of Unspeakable Cults that she'd read.
Question: Is the producer supposed to make clear what the resolution to a mystery is at the beginning of an episode? I played it more like a traditional RPG and let out info on a need to know basis. Probably wrong? Also, this question occurs to me just now, now during play. Was I, as producer supposed to stay in the scene rotation? Or does the producer only do the first scene? It was useful as producer to be able to frame scenes so that I could keep the episode issue continuing. Otherwise the players only have incentive to address their issues. Given that the episode issue is supposed to be nearly ancillary, this leaves only the Producer to care for it. That is, without me thinking about it, there would have been no episode, and the show would have gone completely serial.

Scene 6 - Will hears something in the hall in the evening and checks it out, bumping into the janitor, Olaf Larsen (didn't cast him, hmmm...Tom Poston?)
Director: Josh
Conflict: Does Will find something out
Outcome: Will succeeds, and Olaf relates how this is similar to a break in that happened just before the semester started, followed by the discovery of some remains (a gnawed human forearm from the pilot). Further, he discovered that the University had kept the matter quiet, and that Dr. Shaw was heading up a forensic investigation.

Scene 7 - John enters Pam's lab, to poke around
Director: Ryan
Conflict: Can John get in and find something (Pam v John)?
Outcome: John breaks in handily, and discovers the specimen, some of which he takes.

Scene 8 - Pam and Amanda try to get the book from the special reserve room of the library.
Director: Julie
Conflict: Can they get by brusque librarian Edna Semopolis (played by some character actor with a unibrow and the voice of Roz from Monsters, Inc.)?
Outcome: Pam isn't in the history department, so she can't get the book.

Scene 9 - Pam and Amanda track down Will to get him to get the book.
Director: Mike
Conflict: Can Will resist two women in need?
Outcome: Will does not resist, he agrees to get them the book.

Scene 10 - Back at the special reserve, Amanda comes on strong to Will as they obtain the book.
Director: Josh
Conflict: Can Will manage to resist the very forward Amanda?
Outcome: Will does not resist, and it's established that she's hit on him before. Will agrees to a non-date. Sure.

Scene 11 - John gets results of testing the next day faxed back to him.
Director: Ryan
Conflict: Are the results helpful?
Outcome: Yes, we note that his eyes widen, but do not see what he sees. But it's clear that John knows what's going on.

Scene 12 - Pam goes to lab the next day, and reads the book.
Director: Julie
Conflict: Does Pam discover the tampering by John?
Outcome: She does just before reading about how Ghouls gnaw on Niter from Unspeakable Cults, thus associating their cult with the sample.

End


Pretty cool, overall, and I think we'd play again as is. With some work I think it's going to be pretty good. When doing this, at the very least there's the impression that you could make a TV show if nothing else. :-)

Mike

Actually, it was Ryan that changed characters. I've always had Will Halloway as a character.

This session was much more enjoyable than the "pilot" session. (In part because when we ran the pilot, I had a truly horrible cold.) Including a conflict to be resolved in each scene made each scene interesting & engaging. Rolling the dice in each & every scene was a definite improvement. Other than that, I don't have anything substantive to add to Mike's post.

Cool, Mike. Thanks for posting about it here.

First, here's the major changes:


• A conflict determines success/failure of the protagonist and who gets to narrate it. It happens when someone participating in the scene wants one to happen, either producer or player.

• # of successes determines success/failure, and highest die showing gets narration.

• A player whose character is not in the scene can spend fan mail to roll dice (one die per point) on whichever side the player chooses. If that player gets the highest die, he or she gets narration. It's happened a couple times.

• On a tie, the tying players each roll another die, and do so until the tie is broken.

• Also, this wasn't clear to everyone from the text, so I'll revise it and clarify here: it's always the producer who frames scenes. The player only gets to request agenda, focus and location.


That gives the producer a lot of opportunity to be creative on the fly. I requested a scene where two protagonists were in a hotel trying to find out about another protagonist's doings, so Alan started us out with my guy in disguise as a waiter, and James' guy playing the piano in the lounge.

As to specific questions:

How large is the budget? There are a number of ways to read it. Seems just missing to me. I remembered that you wanted to have only 2 dice for the producer, base, Matt, and went with that. But then it says that the producer can add from one to three dice. Is there a pool (the budget) from which this is supposed to come? Or does the Producer just choose each time? Josh surmised that it meant that there were three dice total, which is what we went with.

At this point I remembered Fan Mail. We had a discussion on when to award it. Frankly all but the first suggestion in the text seem useless.

Is the producer supposed to make clear what the resolution to a mystery is at the beginning of an episode?

Was I, as producer supposed to stay in the scene rotation?

Matt Wilson wrote: A conflict determines success/failure of the protagonist and who gets to narrate it. It happens when someone participating in the scene wants one to happen, either producer or player.

A player whose character is not in the scene can spend fan mail to roll dice (one die per point) on whichever side the player chooses. If that player gets the highest die, he or she gets narration. It's happened a couple times.

On a tie, the tying players each roll another die, and do so until the tie is broken.

Also, this wasn't clear to everyone from the text, so I'll revise it and clarify here: it's always the producer who frames scenes. The player only gets to request agenda, focus and location.

That gives the producer a lot of opportunity to be creative on the fly. I requested a scene where two protagonists were in a hotel trying to find out about another protagonist's doings, so Alan started us out with my guy in disguise as a waiter, and James' guy playing the piano in the lounge.

Budget is 2x the sum of the protagonists' screen presence scores for that episode. You get 2 dice to start with and can add 1-3 budget per conflict.

If I recall, the game I'm in right now has awarded fan mail for 1) having a scene where issue is center, 2) creating a scene that includes a protag of greater screen presence, 3) creating a scene on a personal set, and 4) creating a scene that focuses on the spotlight protagonist. Why useless?

What do you mean by that? You mean is information kept hidden? I think some information can and should be. Players will have the opportunity to nudge some truths via narration, so you can't keep too much behind your screen without having to edit a lot in play.

Yes. Alan, in our current game, has done exactly what you describe. He's also created scenes for the protagonist, assigning us agenda, focus and location.

Hmmm. But then aren't we back to never having to roll? I mean, maybe people will decide to use the mechanics, but maybe they won't. I'm seeing little use of the mechanic in play.

Do they get to narrate facts for dice they roll?

Three is worse. They'll do it every scene, and that'll just be weird.

Overall, the problem that I see is inflation. I'm seeing players with so many FM dice, that A) the edges and contacts don't matter, and B) make the producer unable to compete in any reasonable fashion. I mean, with just criteria one. Each player was getting a point every other scene or so, IIRC (being that more than one was in each scene).

That's a confusing statement. When it was my "turn" do do the agenda, I never did anything but scenes that included the protagonists. Given the type of show that the game is supposed to emulate, would it ever make sense to not have at least one protatonist in each and every scene? There are no "exposition" scenes in many of these shows, and I assumed given the player-character relationship, that it would play out like Law & Order, more than Law & Order: Criminal Intent (where we do get two exposition scenes per show).

It seems like you're ignoring the basics of reward systems. You're expecting players not to pursue rewards, and rewarding for things that seem like they'd happen anyhow. If fan mail isn't a reward, if it's just a resource, then it would be better suited to just being given out at a fixed rate to avoid odd behaviors.


I agree that there's likely to be conflict in each scene. The point is that it's up to the players to identify it so that a roll can occur. Why should I do that if I can just resolve things instead? That is, in most games you see:

GM: Hmm. That's a long leap to the other side. Roll to see if you make it.

In PTA:
Player: Will approaches the chasm and jumps it.

If the player knows what he wants to happen, then he'll just narrate it, and not call for a roll. I mean, if the player is rewarded for certain behaviors with a resource that allows him to win contests for his character, then the idea is that he has an idea of what he wants for the character. So why would he call for a roll in which something else might happen? And the other players aren't playing against him (they get nothing for opposing him), so why should they spoil his fun?

If nobody has an incentive to call for rolls, and nobody has the responsibility to call for rolls, nobody will call for rolls unless two people want opposing things to happen. Given that we determined in the first playtest that these things tended to get ironed out, I don't even see that as causing use. Basically you haven't added anything to the first draft in terms of getting people to use the system.

Now, if it's the producers responsibility, or if you give an incentive to call for a roll, or if you have it as we did where you are required to enumerate the conflict in this manner to get through the scene, then rolls will happen.


One of the reasons that I wouldn't as producer want to do a scene that was just exposition is because then I don't get to employ the mechanics. I mean if there's no PCs, there's nobody to roll against.

If I wanted a game where I could avoid mechanics, then I'd just play freeform.


I did miss the update, so I'll be checking it out.

Mike

Hi Mike,

Some notes about how I've been preparing and running PTA and what I've learned:

1) I only prepare the first scene. I usually have some idea what the player's opponents will be doing, but I leave that open for development in response to what the players create. I've discovered that setting the context for the current episode is important, but it's best to insert only a hint of opposition in that first scene. For example, in one episode I established that the players had a layover on Titan while local authorities process red tape to release a prisoner to them. It was Mark's spotlight episode and his character had ties on Titan, so I suspected the player would find something for his character to do. For the other two, I described a few of the local tourist attractions advertised in the port, let the players explore the set and decide on directions for their characters. Once everybody had a direction, I declared a cut away shot of a mysterious person watching them go their separate ways. Players improvised the following scenes and I improvised opposition with my sketchy initial idea that someone was after some research information that Mark's character had left at the Titan institute and guided by the players' Next Week Ons.

2) Conflicts. As you say, our scenes are short and usually involve only one conflict roll. Myself, I'm not happy with the directions for when to use conflict. I've developed a feel for what works though.

Some key things to remember about conflicts:

- unless someone declares a conflict, it's the GM who decides the outcome of any proposed actions.
- when someone wins narration, they still have to narrate the results according to the success/failure indicated by the dice.

In this case, it's the GM who watchdogs the tenstion, requiring conflicts at specific moments.

With these in mind, I usually only require a conflict in two cases:
1) the plot might branch one way or another.
2) I see potential for intensifying a character's issue.

For example, in one scene Dave (Matt) had tracked a serial killer to a food packing plant. He confronted the shift manager to get in to see the suspect. I thought of two possible interesting outcomes: either the manager betrays Dave, resulting in the killer ambusing him in a fight - or the manager cooperates.

Dave won the conflict, but I got narration, so I described a cut to Dave ambushing the killer as he clocks in. Instead of a second roll to resolve a combat, I just declared that Dave captured the guy. Of course, a quick check showed the clone markers in his DNA - the original was still loose.

(This points out another thing I learned about conflicts: whatever the outcome it's always a good idea to add a plot twist or expansion to the end, to suggest a future direction for the story. The narrator has the power to do this.)

In another example, Ike (James) intercepted the original killer in the middle of attacking a woman. The killer held the woman hostage. As Ike is an ex-hit man, angst ridden by the deaths for the past, the primary issue in the conflict was not who gets away - but whether the girl is killed.

3) Scenes. Yeah, I've noticed that players often end up framing scenes with the information they're required to give. But since the GM frames scenes, I've taken these as requests. (I'm heavily influenced by Trollbabe, scene requesting rules of which I really like.)

As for declaring specific conflict - I think we find this cut out some of play. We found it better to just state the agenda as a general "Dave confronts his ex-wife" and find the specifics of the conflict in play.

Setting Scenes: as GM I've found it really useful to insert "audience revelation" scenes which don't include the players once in a while. These reveal what the villains are up to and give the players something to work towards.

4) Rewards. To be honest, I wish my players were pushing for Fan Mail. It would be helpful if players would remind me that they have earned FM.

That's what I can think of now.

I agree that there's likely to be conflict in each scene. The point is that it's up to the players to identify it so that a roll can occur.

Matt Wilson wrote:

I agree that there's likely to be conflict in each scene. The point is that it's up to the players to identify it so that a roll can occur.

Yes, but "players" includes "producer." In that case it's no different from Trollbabe, Sorcerer, or HeroQuest. Or Dust Devils. Or Paladin. Or the Pool.

Brea Mackle is in a seedy bar with Nate, looking for info on some space pirates. Brea's player has requested that it be a character scene. Okay, so this isn't really about the space pirates, then. That's just backdrop. So the Producer needs to think of something personal to Brea. Ah, Brea has a nemesis. Perfect. He says, "Brea's nemesis is here, looks like she and her posse of badass fighter pilots have taken over the place."

If Brea's player says "Brea just ignores them because she has to focus on the mission at hand," the producer can call for a conflict. If Brea's player says "Brea confronts her nemesis and tries to get her to leave the place," the producer can call for a conflict, or maybe Brea's player would. Conflict either way.

When a situation arises where a protagonist wants something to happen whose success or failure will have significant repercussions, the group resolves it using the conflict rules (see below).

- unless someone declares a conflict, it's the GM who decides the outcome of any proposed actions.

As for declaring specific conflict - I think we find this cut out some of play. We found it better to just state the agenda as a general "Dave confronts his ex-wife" and find the specifics of the conflict in play.

as GM I've found it really useful to insert "audience revelation" scenes which don't include the players once in a while. These reveal what the villains are up to and give the players something to work towards.

Hey Mike:

Sounds in general like we're taking the long way to meet in the middle about conflicts.

For example:

All you have to do in the above paragraph, is change the "can" to "should", put it in the text as an example, and my problem is solved.

In the episode we did, we had way more establishing stuff, and I had the first scene be completely establishing? I'm thinking that this is actually very important for the first episode. Jumping into the problem before knowing the characters a little would be odd. What I'm thinking might be a better rule would be to say that the producer chooses the seating order for the session, and whether play starts with himself or the spotlight character's player.

Where does it say that the GM "frames scenes" and what would it mean if he did?

I noted that in the "Meanwhile..." subsection of Contributing to a Scene that it says that the producer can cut away at any time, and start a new scene. Does this mean that he gets to set the agenda for the scene? Or that cutting merely ends the scene, and that the new scene has it's agenda set by the next player in the queue?

- I had to read twice to figure it out - since narration determination occurs after any rolloffs occur, there will always be somebody with a highest number. That's ingenious, but not quite clear. That is, you should mention that narration should be determined only after all roll offs. Otherwise people might try to do both readings, and then roll off. I realize that the order you have it listed in would prevent that, but this is the sort of thing that people overlook.

- Why can't the producer save budget from episode to episode? Seems harmless, and matches the reality of a budget better, no?

- How long are commercial breaks? Who declares when they're over? Should players be limited in the number they can call? What about breaks for real life needs? I think that institutionalized breaks are an interesting concept.

Matt Wilson wrote: The pilot is tricky, and it's partly why I allow for a bunch of rewrites afterward. It's a test run for characters and techniques.

Budget is a point of frustration for me, what with figuring out the right amount available. The producer's available dice should balance out the players' available dice, including the dice they get from traits. Being able to save unused budget makes a big math headache for me. If you have any suggestions about this, I'm dying to hear them.

- How long are commercial breaks? Who declares when they're over? Should players be limited in the number they can call? What about breaks for real life needs? I think that institutionalized breaks are an interesting concept.

I never thought of setting a specific time limit to them. That's a good idea.

I think "How should the series start?" is an excellent topic to cover during the series creation session. It was Meredith that suggested that our season start off with a bang, namely the death of one of the students on campus. We decided as a group that all of the protags were present at the death, but none were sure what had happened. We decided that the first episode (the Pilot) would be a Rashomon-style retelling of the events from different points of view.

This made it very easy for me to start off the Pilot episode. All I had to do was narrate the teaser in which we see the first version of events, then cut to the protags sitting around the kitchen table a few hours later, preparing to have The Talk about the death. I essentially provided color for the opening scene that the group already planned together.

I think it's unfair to dismiss color in scene framing as an minor Producer job. The structural components of that opening teaser had already been set by the players, yes, but by providing the color, I laid the groundwork for lots of show-elements that were used again and again. Such as the footbridge where the death happened, *how* the student died, who witnessed it, and even a possible reason for *why* the student died. This was important stuff and it wasn't already in place as part of the agenda, location, etc.

OK, what you're calling "framing" there, I'd call narration. I mean, at what point does it stop being framing and become narration? If everything that the producer does in directing the setting and such is framing, then I'm right with you, this is important GM stuff. But framing to me has always meant, "This scene is set in the bar, and Bob and Ed are arguing over politics." Framing implies, in the uses I've seen, just setting up the scene, putting a frame around it. Filling in the scene, painting the picture in the frame, is narration in the parlance that I've always used.

Maybe we can use actual TV terms to straighten this all out. Like I used above, at some point somebody has to become the "director." But, before that happens, there are the writers who decide whats going to happen in the scenes. So, I'm seeing the player playing the actor working with the writer to come up with what should be in the scene in question. These general contents are then handed over to the director, who in our case shows us what the scenery looks like after he says, "action!"

Hmmm. Actually, I'm thinking now that someone else might be better as "cinematographer." Or... well this is a bit disjointed, but do you see where I'm coming from?

BTW, that sounds like a cool pilot. Maybe just a list of suggestions like this for potential frameworks for different kinds of episodes would be cool?

Mike

Ah... yeah, that example is confusing, Mike, because I was *both* framing the scene AND narrating the action. Sorry I didn't distinguish the two.

To me, "framing" is everything before the Director calls "action!". This includes a whole lot more than "You're in a bar, with Bob and Ed arguing over politics." It is literally *everything* to set the scene before the action starts. This is all color, but it is color that can have a huge impact on how the scene plays out. The Procucer has lots of freedom here to insert her own creativity into the episode. You shouldn't just say, "Okay, you're there. Go."

Consider this framing based on your Bob and Ed scenario above:

"It's open-mic night at Plato's Republic, and Bob is on stage. The usual crowd of politicos, philosophers and wannabes crowd the dark and smoky basement espresso bar, hanging on his every word. He's worked himself up into quite a state and the crowd is in the palm of his hand. All of them, that is, except Ed. Even though he only came to the bar to show support for Bob, he just can't swallow what Bob is laying down. Finally, Ed's had enough. He stands in the middle of the crowd and blurts out his objection..."

Now the scene includes an audience of NPCs that may develop as possible connections and the argument between protags is not a private thing. These details change the feel of the scene considerably.

Now, a good Producer will frame scenes that are appropriate for the tone and feel of the series, but the establishment of that tone and feel comes in large part from how the Producer frames scenes. Very aggressive framing like the above is encouraged. It's the primary way for the Producer to contribute to the series, IMO.

John Harper wrote:
"It's open-mic night at Plato's Republic, and Bob is on stage. The usual crowd of politicos, philosophers and wannabes crowd the dark and smoky basement espresso bar, hanging on his every word. He's worked himself up into quite a state and the crowd is in the palm of his hand. All of them, that is, except Ed. Even though he only came to the bar to show support for Bob, he just can't swallow what Bob is laying down. Finally, Ed's had enough. He stands in the middle of the crowd and blurts out his objection..."

Mike Holmes wrote: To the point, I can't remember doing any of that in the game that we played. None. Nada. Josh, if you're reading, did I do any "framing"?

In case you didn't notice, 95% of the PTA text is about the most explicit roleplaying text you can find anywhere. Is it perfect? Not at all. In a few cases (like this "framing" business) it could use more explicit language and rules. Agreed.

However, it's a wee bit condescending to start talking about how a good game text should be explicit like Trollbabe and MLwM when the vast majority of the PTA text is already at least as clearly written as those games, if not better. The introductory chapter alone should be enough to clue you into the fact that Matt already understands that explicit = good. PTA actually explains, in clear, plain language, right up front, what the game is about and what you're trying to accomplish when you play. Very few games manage as much.

Matt is the *last* person that needs some blanket (frankly patronizing) advice about explicit rules writing. What's next? Advice about how you shouldn't assume the reader has played other RPGs? Or how you shouldn't introduce a term without defining it first? Give me a break. Nothing about the (well above average) text of PTA should make you think that some kind of "game design 101" lecture needs to be given in this thread.

Now, are *particular* rules explicit enough? Perhaps not. There are specific elements of the game that need to be honed and explained in a different way. Let's talk about them, specifically. Save the remedial lectures for designs that clearly need them.

All very interesting, I'm still trying to absorb it all ahead of our Playtest (via IRC, and its taking some time to organise regrettably -you know what it's like).

The only comment I've had on the conflict issue from one of the prospective players, and who is very pro-PTA, is what would conflict ever occurr, as surely that is just the producer putting his wants on the scene rather than letting player have his? I realise player/player conflict can occur, he was more focusing on the player/producer conflict.

He seemed to think most of it would play out without conflict occurring, as in such a game with cooperative authorship, the majority of the time the Producer would just go, that's cool, and not call for a conflict.

He thought that was a good thing, and could not grasp where the conflict mechanic would fit in.Not only that, we came to the conclusion that if everyone was in on the PTA social contract side of things, conflict (in the dramatic sense) would be created as everyone would be gunning for it, but it would most likely come about in role-played scenes with no conflict roll (as the interesting outcome would be something everyone would not at and go, yeah, that worked out great, without one side or the other needing to roll to get to that point). I was inclined to agree with him to some degree, but not totally.

It'll be interesting to see how it plays out in our test.

John, calm down. Matt asked for playtesting and feedback. Mike and I are offering that. Neither of us are trying to be patronizing or condescending, and I don't think either of us are being patronizing or condescending. And since it's Matt's game that we're offering feedback and suggestions for, I'd prefer you leave the accusations of condescension to him. If he feels we're patronizing him, he can say so.

You may feel PTA is "about the most explicit roleplaying text you can find anywhere," but Mike and I would obviously disagree, since we have serious questions about the rules and their clarity. Now, I may be dense, but Mike's a smart cookie. This thread hasn't cleared up stuff for me. Not yet, anyway. Hopefully, this discussion will result in clarity. Or maybe we're all just talking past each other. Wouldn't be the first time that's happened on the Forge.

Matt is, of course, free to ignore both Mike and me. No skin off my nose if he does. But he asked for playtesting and he asked for feedback. And while I appreciate your desire to back up your friend, Matt can take care of himself. If Matt has a problem with Mike's comments or my comments, he can say something.

I think the disconnect comes, John, from the text being very explicit in parts, but then refusing to be explicit about other things. I get the sense that, perhaps, Matt thinks it might be better to leave these things vague. I actually disagree that absolutely everything needs to be explicit. In fact, Ron's point about what he calls "Points of Contact" is that sometimes it's better not to state something and let the players figure it out.

My point is that Matt could be doing it correctly, and we could be wrong about needing to be more explicit. All we've done is to state our side of the argument, why it's important in this case, and for this sort of thing, in our experience. I'd be pleasantly surprised to find out that we're wrong, and that Matt has left this ambiguous for some very good reason.

So this is just normal debate. If I've brought up any rudiments unneccessarily, and seemed condescending for having done it, then I apologize. But the intent was just to argue from first principles.

Mike

You're right, Mike. Well said. I do honestly feel that Josh's response in particular came off as rather patronizing, but I'm willing to admit that I may have overreacted a bit.

I'd appreciate it if you don't play thread-police, Josh. Telling me to "calm down" and then suggesting what I should or should not be posting here is no way to win friends. I call 'em like I see 'em. I'm willing to admit I may have been wrong about your post (as I assume you're willing to admit your post *could have* been seen as a condescending) but I'm not willing to be bullied out of a topic because you think Matt should "take care of himself."

I'm a PTA playtester and am involved in the ongoing development of the game, in addition to being Matt's friend. I'm posting here to help move the discussion forward and generate helpful feedback, not to "defend" Matt from criticism.

Oops, I meant to PM John & instead posted something. It really belongs in PM, so...ignore this.

I don't know *what* turned me into such an asshole in this thread, but I'm over it now. Josh and I PM'ed and everything is cool. We now return you to your regularly-scheduled PTA actual play thread, now bickering free.

Ian O'Rourke wrote: The only comment I've had on the conflict issue from one of the prospective players, and who is very pro-PTA, is what would conflict ever occurr, as surely that is just the producer putting his wants on the scene rather than letting player have his? I realise player/player conflict can occur, he was more focusing on the player/producer conflict.

Let's see if I can make it a bit clearer, though I'm conscious I'm speaking second-hand on the issue.

As a player of a prospective playtest, Gods willing, he has read the rules. He likes the game and recognises we have been 50% of the way to PTA for some time in how play our traditional games. But he is not sure how often conflict rolls will really come about.

As an example, if a player decides he wants a scene in which his protagonist tries to romance the a sexy starpilot, and that was fun, and an interesting development for him to succeed at that - why would anyone put in a conflict roll to act as a barrier to that (and have the object of his attentions not reciprocate)?. I realise conflict rolls are not barriers (and conscious of the Forge twisting my words here) but in truth, if everyone that was a great thing to happen, why roll for conflict? Role-play the scene, and the player's protagonist romances the starpilot.

So the issue comes down to the fact that in a group of like-minded souls, all on the same songsheet, pro-actively trying to create a PTA story, etc - his view is, the chances are, the scenes and intentions the players create for their protagonists would likely be quite good, so why involve conflict rolls?

Though I must admit, he is probably on the assumption 90% of conflict rolls would be Producer calls - in which case he then sees it as the player coming up with interesting stuff for his protagonist and then having the Producer challenge it goes another way via a Conflict roll, and hence the Conflict Roll seemed to him to be a strange way for the Producer exert control. After all, if he wants to succeed at romancing the starpilot, or wants to fail at persuading his daughter to forgive him, etc, whatever, why roll for conflict to change that?

I didn't fully agree, but I can see the core of the argument, if you have such a good, cooperative storytelling thing going on, scene by scene, and the players are creating good scenes, with an interesting direction - why throw in the conflict as no one will see the need to call one?

I suppose the essential question was: How often would people need to roll to decide in which direction the story went in any particular scene? His vew was rarely. I could see how it would be more prevailent.

Hence, looking forward to the playtest.

As an example, if a player decides he wants a scene in which his character tries to romance the a sexy starpilot, and that was fun, and an interesting development for him to succeed at that - why would anyone put in a conflict roll to act as a barrier to that. I realise conflict rolls are not barriers (and conscious of the Forge twisting my words here) but in truth, if everyone that was a great thing to happen, why roll for conflict? Role-play the scene, and the player's protagonist romances the starpilot.

Matt Wilson wrote: Conflict boil down to this: "does the protagonist get what he/she wants?"

If you want to freeform, and just agree that stuff happens, you're more than welcome to. You can also do that in D&D (wouldn't it be great if we just killed all the goblins?).

But in the default rules, you ought to be rolling. With a nod to Mike, I've revised the text to explicitly say that it's the producer's job to provide conflicts if the players don't seek it out.

I had an idea the other day about tweaking conflicts in PTA:

If the player sets the agenda for a scene as 'Plot' then there must be a conflict roll during the scene. In other words, the protag may or may not get what they want, and the dice will tell us which way it goes.

If the agenda is set as 'Character' then there may or may not be a conflict roll, depending on what the players want.

So, players can explore character issues in either a freeform or dice-driven way. But when advancing the plot they must engage in conflicts and roll the dice.

My initial feeling was that there should be a conflict roll in each scene: it stems from my view of TV scripting that something should change in each scene, that if the state of play was the same at the end of a scene as at the start, it's filler.

However, I can see that, if that's happening in a scene anyway, in a way that's interesting for all involved, the roll isn't strictly necessary... but I'd probably be, as producer, calling for conflict rolls in most scenes anyway, on the Rolling Stones pinciple: "You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes you might get what you need."

But yeah: some character scenes it could seem dumb to roll a conflict: frex, one player wants his character to confide in another that she was beaten as a child, part of the character's issue.

Conflict roll or not?

On the not side, it's adressing the characters' issue, it "protagonising" in that it's what the character & player want.... but on the roll side, a failed conflict roll can show that the character is in deeper denial than they thought, or the other character doesn't want to hear, or any number of things that both address the issue in there own way, while providing for unseen developments of character and / or plot.

So I'm leaning towards when in doubt, roll & shout.

pete_darby wrote: My initial feeling was that there should be a conflict roll in each scene: it stems from my view of TV scripting that something should change in each scene, that if the state of play was the same at the end of a scene as at the start, it's filler.

Well, I'm wondering whether "conflict" is the best term for the roll: Complication, maybe? Though the idea does come from "dramatic conflict", which may be quite different to someone used to conflict being expressed purely in, ah, physical or personal confrontation terms.

Maybe we could do with something in the rules that "conflict" can be internal as well as external... I think that's the "oomph" that powers most character scenes, and gets you the "good people sometimes make bad choices" and "bad people do good despite themselves" plots that drove, inter alia, the whole Buffy - Spike relationship...

I don't think a conflict roll is required in every scene. Some scenes work very well just to set up potential conflict. And without such scenes, sequels where premise is addressed and conflict is rolled are not possible. For this reason, I think both Plot and Character focus scenes should leave conflict rolls optional.

Dice-roll-optional scenes can be initiated by a player or producer. They need not even include a PC. For example, a short scene revealing something to the audience about opponents' plans, for example, can f

However, one thing we learned playtesting PTA is that the emulation of actual TV can be taken too far for the intended design of the game. For example: trying to hit all the development points of the Act sequence can conflict with the random nature of conflict rolls.

Rolling a conflict in PTA produces an emotional climax for the players. It asks the players to make an emotional investment in addressing premise - the "so what?" that is a key element of narrativist play. At the same time, emphasizing the reproduction of the conventions of an hour long TV show can stiffle narrativism by prioritizing hitting those points over rolling conflict.

This points out one of the differences between producing a one hour TV episode and playing a role-playing game: the show is a designed product, while the game is created and guided on the fly - with random input both from dice rolls and player inspiration.

In fact, this issue is a dial that drifts the game from narrativism into simulationism. The dice rolls are _required_ for meaningful premise addressing, and this in turn demands players give up rigid adherance to reproducing TV conventions. Instead, TV conventions should be seen as tools to grab and use when the conflict resolution happens to point towards one.

However, one thing we learned playtesting PTA is that the emulation of actual TV can be taken too far for the intended design of the game. For example: trying to hit all the development points of the Act sequence can conflict with the random nature of conflict rolls.

In fact, this issue is a dial that drifts the game from narrativism into simulationism. The dice rolls are _required_ for meaningful premise addressing, and this in turn demands players give up rigid adherance to reproducing TV conventions. Instead, TV conventions should be seen as tools to grab and use when the conflict resolution happens to point towards one.

Maybe we could do with something in the rules that "conflict" can be internal as well as external... I think that's the "oomph" that powers most character scenes, and gets you the "good people sometimes make bad choices" and "bad people do good despite themselves" plots that drove, inter alia, the whole Buffy - Spike relationship...

Matt Wilson wrote:

However, one thing we learned playtesting PTA is that the emulation of actual TV can be taken too far for the intended design of the game. For example: trying to hit all the development points of the Act sequence can conflict with the random nature of conflict rolls.

However, I can't think of an example of play where TV conventions interfered with meaningful premise addressing. Is there something from the Spacehunter game that you're thinking of?

I started out intending to GM to act structure much more rigidly, but I quickly realized that wouldn't be healthy.

Other than that, I didn't see it in Starhunter. However, I've read comments from other games that seem to indicate they're at least thinking of applying act structure and other TV conventions more rigidly. I just want to place a word of caution: that will change the game significantly and probably stiffle the style of play the designer intended.