I have an interesting Actual Play moment I've been meaning to share for like three months. It concerns the closing episode for out highly successful Dirtside series (best thing I ever GMed/Produced in almost fifteen years of gaming), which I have previously mentioned in passing here.

So it's the season finale, and our protagonists are in orbit, trying to get the hell away from the colossal Senate Ship which is about to blow up in a big fiery ball and leave the galaxy in total anarchy... the Legionnaires are taking over the docking bays, and our heroine has to run like the wind to try to make through the crossfire and into the shuttle she had her friend/Connection/mechanic prepare for take off. The other protagonists abandoned the ship with plenty of time to spare, but our heroine had to go back once she found out about the big fiery ball thing to get her dad (the military high commander for the nearest planet, at the time at a Senate hearing), her girlfriend lover (a tough as nails Sergeant that used to give our lowly Private 1st Class heroine all nine kinds of hell... strangely enough, she was her Nemesis when the series started, but the player started taking a liking to her... a big liking!) and her boyfriend lover (a Private FC, like her, that turned out to be working as a spy for the Rebels and was scheduled for execution... she had found his Rebel origins right in the end of the pilot episode, but had been covering up for him because he was the only man in the platoon that treated her decently and she had fallen in love with him already).

So the Screen Presence for our heroine is just 1 for this episode. I know the end is getting nearer (just a few more scenes to go), but I can't let this damn series end without settling once and for all (until the next season, at least) who will our heroine choose to keep as her lover: the rebel traitor boyfriend she fell madly in love with in the first episodes, or the tough lesbian sergeant who got her through so much and turned out to be good a friend and lover. So far, she had managed to avoid a final decision (with the boyfriend having run away to hide from the law and all) but this is the series finale, so... someone's got to go, unless they can make a threesome work, which seems pretty unlikely.

So as our heroine is making a mad dash for the shuttle, trying to run through the crossfire safely with her father and her two lovers in tow, I say to my player: "Conflict time. Here's the stakes: we'll roll the dice three times, once for each one of the three persons you're trying to get aboard safely. If I win the roll, it means that person was shot up pretty badly, most likely dead; if you win, that person gets to the shuttle safely. I'll only roll the producer's automatic die for each roll, I won't add budget dice. As for you, you'll roll your Screen Presence (1) every time and divide the Trait and Fan Mail dice you're entitled to between the three persons however you see fit; the more dice you assign to a person, the more chances that person has of making it out of this. Let's find out how bad you want each of these people to survive. Think hard!"

I can't even begin to explain how cool I thought this was. Working exclusively through the system (well, a variation of it, anyway) I was pretty much asking the player outright how much she cared for each of these characters (each of one very dear to her), and to prioritize them according how much she wanted them to make through all this alive. As it had happened many time before (lot's of hard bangs in this series!) the player was grief stricken, and took some moments to get her priorities straight and divide her limited resources. The results were this:

Her Father got 1 die from her (the automatic Screen Presence die).
The Boyfriend/Fiancé got 2 dice (the automatic plus a trait die).
The Lesbian Girlfriend Lover got 4, count 'em, 4 dice (one automatic plus three trait/fan mail dice).

The Conundrum was finally solved... she was dumping her old sweetheart and getting together with her lesbian girlfriend. Not right now, in the middle of all this crazy events, but after things had settled down enough for some serious talking. Even if a TV audience wouldn't know which of these three persons was more dear to the character (at least not in this scene) we, the gaming group, could clearly tell how our friend felt just by comparing the three sets of dice she placed on the table. I can't tell you how proud I felt at that moment. I know this is not acceptable according to the PTA rules, but damn, it felt great, and I had a very good reason for twisting the rules.

This is the most important stuff, but no, the story doesn't end here. Now it's time to roll them bones! The Father has a 50% chance of dying right there, but he makes it out alive. Hurrah! The Boyfriend has better chances, and he too makes it. Now the easy part; four dice for the Girlfriend against the producer's one die and... the producer wins! My God, the look on my player's face was just priceless, I thought she was going to faint... If there was a photo of her at that moment I'd have it framed and labeled has the most intense moment a player ever experienced at my gaming table, and believe me, during this PTA series the poor girl suffered plenty of them. Incredible, just incredible!

Long story short, I had the girlfriend make it just barely breathing and to recover eventually and very painfully... the love triangle was such a huge goddamn bang waiting to happen that having one of the persons involved dying randomly seemed too merciful! :-D I wanted the player to have to suffer through explaining to her fiancé the things she was keeping hidden from him... small everyday stuff, like a lesbian love affair with her drill sergeant which she wants to marry...

Oh well, so here it is. Three months late, but I finally made it.

Ricardo

Dude.

DUDE.

You set up an awesome conflict, laid out the stakes for all to see, rolled the dice, and then... fudged the outcome?!

I can't believe it. The girlfriend is dead. Dead dead dead. If she was just going to scrape by with some injuries, why bother rolling at all? Sorry if this sounds harsh, but you broke the cardinal rule of conflict resolution in my opinion. The idea to split her dice was pretty cool, but what came afterwards looks like plain ol' GM Force to me.

Also: Was everyone else out of fan mail dice or something? Because man, is that ever a conflict that all the players would jump into in my games. Why did no one help her out?

Fudge the outcome? Well, I guess I did just that, eheh... the actual play post I put up on my Portuguese blog at the time says that was at stake for the three characters was "getting shot up and left behind" (though I don't know if that was exactly what I said during the game or not). What my player did (don't remember if she narrated the conflict and introduced this, or if I narrated and didn't take the narration all the way to a point where there was no going back) was having her heroine stop the shuttle doors from closing and run back halfway through the crossfire again to get her dying(?) friend, not caring for anything else.

I might have been a whimp, but like I said, I thought it too merciful for the player to have fate resolve the love triangle... I prefered to let her handle it in her own way and see her squirm. So I let her get away with it, but at a terrible price nevertheless: I killed the 4th character the player/character really cared about. The heroine enters the shuttle, the loading doors finally close and she's safe inside, her lover on her arms bleeding like a multi-punctured blood bag but at least still alive (barely), and she looks around to see that the girl mechanic (the one who kept the shuttle ready for take off), who has been her confident and closest friend since the first second of the pilot episode, is stone dead on the floor, killed while providing covering fire so that the heroine could go back for her lover. I thought this was incredibly satisfying... fate and rotten dice would the be the ones to blame for the potential death of her love, but now the player/character only has herself to blame for the loss of her closest friend: she put everybody on that shuttle at risk by choosing to go back.

All things, considered I don't regret doing what I did.

John wrote: Also: Was everyone else out of fan mail dice or something? Because man, is that ever a conflict that all the players would jump into in my games. Why did no one help her out?

Man, I'm totally confused about this conflict. So you as producer got to roll all your dice as a whole, while the player had to divide them up? Am I understanding that right?

Who decided what the stakes were? Did everyone get a say in it, or was it just you?

Oh, and one last question, regarding this:

I killed the 4th character the player/character really cared about.

Matt wrote:
Man, I'm totally confused about this conflict. So you as producer got to roll all your dice as a whole, while the player had to divide them up? Am I understanding that right?

Matt wrote: Who decided what the stakes were? Did everyone get a say in it, or was it just you?

Matt wrote:

I killed the 4th character the player/character really cared about.

How did you do that? Was that part of the stakes of a conflict at some point? Was this the same conflict?

Matt wrote:
It's too bad you can't remember all the details of the exact stakes and who won narration. I can think of several ways you could have set up the stakes in that kind of situation, and it's nice for people to see the specific 'game parts' in action.

John wrote:
You set up an awesome conflict, laid out the stakes for all to see, rolled the dice, and then... fudged the outcome?!

I can't believe it. The girlfriend is dead. Dead dead dead. If she was just going to scrape by with some injuries, why bother rolling at all? Sorry if this sounds harsh, but you broke the cardinal rule of conflict resolution in my opinion.

Iago, you are right except for one thing: They should have made it the stakes straight away. That would have been an honest thing to do. And I disagree that it wouldn't have mattered, John. Why do so many people get the notion that conflicts can't be about color stuff? The choice would still have been there: Which person is most important to the player? Not as grave, but still significant.

If you first set the stakes and then fudge them afterwards, that's an indicator that you picked the wrong stakes to begin with. But: It's probably better to correct your mistake whilst you can than to stick with it and put the NPC out of the story for good. Only you should be honest about it. You should tell the players straight in the face: Guys, you know, these stakes were crap. I don't want that character out of the show, or do you?

The way Ric just "ruled" in this instance smacks of GM force, which is just not appropriate in PtA as I understand it.

- Frank

I had a big long reply, and then Frank beat me to it.

If you first set the stakes and then fudge them afterwards, that's an indicator that you picked the wrong stakes to begin with.

Frank wrote:
Iago, you are right except for one thing: They should have made it the stakes straight away. That would have been an honest thing to do. And I disagree that it wouldn't have mattered, John. Why do so many people get the notion that conflicts can't be about color stuff? The choice would still have been there: Which person is most important to the player? Not as grave, but still significant.

If you first set the stakes and then fudge them afterwards, that's an indicator that you picked the wrong stakes to begin with. But: It's probably better to correct your mistake whilst you can than to stick with it and put the NPC out of the story for good. Only you should be honest about it. You should tell the players straight in the face: Guys, you know, these stakes were crap. I don't want that character out of the show, or do you?

The way Ric just "ruled" in this instance smacks of GM force, which is just not appropriate in PtA as I understand it.

Frank wrote:
Why do so many people get the notion that conflicts can't be about color stuff?

Hello,

Everyone's getting all heated up over nothing and probably dragging in baggage about their own histories of play.

It all comes down the statement of the stakes. If Ric and the group did indeed leave the possibility of death open during this statement, then it was open, and whoever narrated got to say whether whatshername lives or dies. If failure of the conflict was established as including her dying, then she dies. Pretty easy.

The issue is not really to pin the Played It Wrong badge on anyone, with the attendant Group Was Suxxy sign hung on the door of wherever the game was played. The issue is for everyone participating in this thread to see the importance of stating the Stakes in a meaningful, useful, and fully-understood way, during play itself. Are we arriving, as a discussion crew here and now, at that shared understanding?

'Cause one thing's for sure: if narrator fiat can overturn what was stated as the Stakes, that establishes a very slippery slope to a very unpleasant place in play, for this particular game. There. I can say that without anyone flipping out, right? No accusations. Re-read the paragraph right before this one.

Please try to respond without using any version of the phrase "What I meant was ..."
Best,
Ron

Ron wrote:
It all comes down the statement of the stakes. If Ric and the group did indeed leave the possibility of death open during this statement, then it was open, and whoever narrated got to say whether whatshername lives or dies. If failure of the conflict was established as including her dying, then she dies. Pretty easy.
(...)
'Cause one thing's for sure: if narrator fiat can overturn what was stated as the Stakes, that establishes a very slippery slope to a very unpleasant place in play, for this particular game. There. I can say that without anyone flipping out, right? No accusations. Re-read the paragraph right before this one.

Yes, Ron, you're right. I think we are coming to an understanding on that point. I apologize to Ric if my first response was too harsh and judgmental.

The way I see it, PTA plays better when the stakes have concrete meaning. If you establish a conflict with stakes like "Someone might die," then the narrator gets to decide if they die or not, with all of the attendant consensus-checking and group dynamics that go with that. This, to me, is identical to simple fiat by one person, or freeform group decision-making. It doesn't resemble the conflict resolution system of PTA as I understand it.

Aaaah, that's very interesting, because for me, there's a lot of enjoyable tension to be had in whether or not the outcome's going to be in my hands.  So I would enjoy the texture of "someone might die" more than I'd enjoy "someone will die", since the former allows for some sensitivity on the part of the narrator to the ebb and flow of the story and the latter says simply that the callous toss of the dice is, once the stakes are set, the sole determinant.  I can see why folks who might be on a less "I trust my narrator" footing would be liable to prefer the latter instead, but I give my trust freely and often.

It has nothing to do with trust, Fred. I trust all of my fellow players. That's a given for me. I don't play with people I don't trust.

It has to do with resolving a conflict. What's at stake? The dice roll resolves those stakes. In other words, the point of rolling dice (to me, when I play PTA) is to produce a clear resolution that is then interpreted by the narrator. That's my preference. When you have vague stakes like "Susan might die" then the narrator is creating the resolution. I feel that this creation phase should happen during stakes-setting, not after the dice roll.

To put it another way, if Susan's death is not what's at stake in the conflict, then it can be narrated and approved/disapproved by group consensus after the roll. But what is at stake? That thing, whatever it is, should be resolved one way or the other by the dice. Maybe it's "Does Susan finally show her bravery?" The conflict roll says, "No." That stake is resolved. That's the way I understand conflict rolls in PTA. They create yes/no answers, interpreted by the narrator. Anything that isn't a yes/no issue should not be put up as the primary stakes.

Right, and that's where I disagree.  I'm fine with "this range of possible outcomes" as my stake, rather than "this list of definite outcomes" -- and in fact, I may prefer it.  So there's some clarity.

Coolio.

Ron wrote:
'Cause one thing's for sure: if narrator fiat can overturn what was stated as the Stakes, that establishes a very slippery slope to a very unpleasant place in play, for this particular game. There. I can say that without anyone flipping out, right? No accusations. Re-read the paragraph right before this one.

Okay guys, gals, thanks to everyone who chimed in! I have no problem with anyone's comments, at least not so far, in case John (Harper)'s worrying. Just call 'em like you see 'em; I appreciate it, and I have already gotten at least one precious insight from all this:

Matt wrote: One drawback to making stakes too specific is it removes some power from the narrator. With stakes like the above, having control of the narration is worth spending some fan mail on.

This is a transcript for the entire conflict, from beginning to end, taken from the sound recordings I did at the session. I will use narration to abbreviate some parts.

Player has entered the hangar bay with the three said NPCs in tow. There's one hell of a firefight going on between the Legionnaires and the people to whom she gave the task of getting a shuttle ready for the escape. The Player makes a run for the shuttle, taking the NPCs with her.

The Producer pauses for a bit and the Player urges him on. Producer asks the Player how many dice she has left.

Player (replying to question): "Some, but not many... So, what do I have to roll? What's at stake here?"

Producer (avoiding the direct question about the stakes, probably because he hasn't figured out that part yet): "Look, we'll roll three conflicts."

Player (very confused, as she should be as this never happened during the entire series): "Three conflicts?!"

Producer: "One for each NPC you have with you."

The Producer goes on explaning how much dice he'll roll (one die, three times) and how much dice the Player can roll (one Screen Presence die three times, plus her Fan Mail and Trait dice divided between the three rolls however she wants). The Producer then decides the order of the conflicts, trying to make it from lowest to highest in terms of audience interest: The Dad, The Fiancé, The Lesbian Lover. Only now, at the end of the explanations, do the stakes come up...(I must have stalling trying to think things through... evidently it worked, because I got the stakes just right. Read on!)

Producer (speaking slowly): "Those NPCs that fail the conflict are... are hurt.... and... and fall behind."

The Player moans. Then she has a doubt about what she can or should roll. The Producer explains everything again, in detail, sounding much more confident. The other players help to clear things up for her.

Producer: "The idea is to see in which NPCs you spend your dice!"

The other players laugh out loud at this. The Player moans.

Producer (Refering to the fact that all NPCs have the same base chance to make it, and that the Player's distribution of her dice is the only factor that can influence the odds.): "Indirectly, I'm placing the decision in your hands."

The other players start making suggestions, and throwing praise and/or derrogatory comments at this or that NPC. The Player, starting to realize how deep a hole she's in, asks again for a clarification on the entire process. The Producer is happy to oblige (I wanted her to make a conscious choice, nothing else would do). The Player moans extensively... again.

And finally it starts. The Father goes first.

Player: "Screw Dad. He only gets one die."

The Player wins this conflict, and the Producer gets narration. Producer says two or three brief sentences about how her dad is running at her side, shooting his service revolver at the Legionnaires.

Producer: "Now for the next one..."

Other Player (giving advice to The Player, and playing right into the Producer's plan): "You're thinking of dividing your dice equally between the other two. It's gonna end badly. You're gonna frag them both!"

Next conflict is for the Fiancé. The other players taunt the Player, joking that's she already killed him once and saying that she should make up for it now. They're refering to a previous scene where she was put as the leader of the firing squad that was to execute him and how she made no move - besides hesitating and delaying the firing order until she could delay no more - to save him, choosing instead to save her military career... fortunately the firing squad turned out to be an elaborate device of one of the more shadowy NPCs, created to make people think the traitor Fiancé was dead and to raise the suspicions that were hanging over the Player's PC.

The Player gives her Fiancé a total of two dice, and she wins with two successes! The Player doesn't really narrate anything, but at least she explains how the trait she used to win the conflict helps her get her Fiance safely to the shuttle.

Now for her Lesbian Lover and ex-Nemesis.

Player: "So, at best you only get one success, right?"

Producer: "That's right... and at worst you only get zero, right?"

Player (laughs nervously): "I didn't want to spend all my Fan Mail, there might be other important scenes... oh, screw it. I'll roll everything I got: my Screen Presence, my connection Lilly, and both my Fan Mail dice."

Producer: "Hey, now we know who she likes best!"

Other Player: "Exactly! Now that was lovely."

Player: "I hope she [the NPC] knows it!"

Producer: "Oh, she'll feel it."

Player and Producer roll the dice. It's a 1-1 tie! Everybody laughs very loud!

Player: "The horror! I can't believe it! Ooooh, so much pain..."

Other Player: "I can't believe it! She's not out of the woods yet!"

Producer (narrates a bit): "So, you're running along to the shuttle. The bad guys are shooting at you and at the ship. You're a bit-"

Other Player: "The audience isn't gonna like it if you kill her lover!!"

Player and Producer roll their success die again, to un-tie, and the Producer comes out on top! The Player moans loudly...

Other Player (joking): "Ouch! No way, I'm out of here! Don't worry, we all lost a Connection this episode, so..."

Player: "Hey, don't kill her. Listen, I'll stay behind. I'll stay."

Producer tries to say something.

Player (groaning): "Oh, no. The pain!"

Producer narrates the NPC getting shot and falling over the PC, both of them tumbling to the ground.

Player (in-iharacter, screaming the NPC's name): "KC!!!!!! I'll fall back... I'll fall back..."

Producer hesitates.

Player: "I'll fall back..."

Other Player (throwing a suggestion and mentioning the mechanic girl friend of the PC, the Connection the Player in this lost conflict): "Lilly can also fall behind. KC can become unconcious as both girls drag her into the ship."

Producer (to Player): "Ha... who are you willing to trade for KC?"

Player (very nervous): "Do I have to trade?"

Everybody laughs.

Player: "How about Dad?" [Laughs... and moans.] "The pain. Two Fan Mail dice... I can't believe it!"

Other Player: "That's not pain. The real pain is she [the NPC] getting k-"

Player: "It's not that! It's just I used two Fan Mail dice on her and still she died! Or maybe..."

Producer says something... maybe "Your fault!"

Player: "Wait, I'll go back."

Other Player (slowly, to Producer): "You're very cruel, Ricardo, very cruel..."

Player: "It's the dice, the dice. That's why I like Amber [Diceless]! Come on, I go back! How is she?"

The Producer narrates the scene, going for the gory details of the big stomach wound and the deafening noise that the ship's engines are starting to make. The Player picks her lover up.

Producer: "And Lily is-"

Player (in-character, to her friend Lilly): "Hold it, hold the ship!"

The Producer narrates Lily coming to rescue the PC and NPC. The 3 of them reach the ship, run across the loading ramp and throw themselves to the ground once inside. The door closes behind them, but the shots still ricochet on the ship's body. Eventually the player realizes her friend Lily is not moving...

Producer: "Maybe that spreading red spot on her back has something to do with it?"

The Player moans.

And the scene goes on from here, with the PC taking the controls of the ship (she's the pilot) and yelling for the other persons aboard to take care of her two dying friends. Minutes later, after the danger has passed, the Fiancé brings her Lily's dead body and rests it on the co-pilot's seat... Tough luck.

Hey Ricardo,

Thanks for posting that transcript! Great stuff. We should all try to record our games more often. It's very interesting to "hear" the real game being spoken by the players.

Thanks, John! I thought it kinda cool to hear all that stuff again; now that I'm not trying to think fifty things at once, I realised how much of the group dynamics had slipped by me unoticed. There were lots of cool small things I never noticed going on, and this just in 15 minutes of play. On the downside, the recordings are be somewhat boring to those outside the game (and even to those that were there)... lots of pauses/silences here and there that you never notice while gaming because your mind is racing between fifty places; also you always have facial expressions, gestures, etc, to keep track of.

Anyway, and finally moving the discussion away from the correctness of the statement of the stakes and the resolution of the conflict, here's what I thought most important about this "moment to remember": the clear and direct relationship between the player's management of resources (Trait and Fan Mail dice) and the player's emotional engagement (if that's the correct term) with the elements envolved in the conflict/stakes.

I know, I know, this is pretty basic; at least in this kind of game, with this kind of conflict resolution, obviously the players will spend their resources to make happen the things they want to happen, and keep from happening things they don't want to happen. My 7 weeks old daughter could have figured that one out by herself. I had just never seem this so clearly, right there in front me, unfiltered by other considerations in an equation where there were no other variables to keep track of except for one: the player's commitment.

This was in fact so clear - because of the way the multiple conflict were simultaneously set up, with identical stakes for each and sharing the same base chance of success/failure - that you could evaluate on a numerical scale how much the player cared for each of the three NPCs involved in relation to one another: Dad is a 1, Fiancé is a 2, and Lover is a 4.

You normally don't get to see things this clearly, that's all. The important conflicts are always spread between the session in different scenes, always involve different stakes, and the opposition the player has to beat (i.e. the Producer's Budget dice) varies a lot and has a most direct influence on the number of resources the player spends. So you can't compare various conflicts to each other; you might know which one's the player cares most about, but it's probably not through the mechanics you reach that conclusion.

Is there a new game mechanic hiding in here? Maybe a game where the player, faced with a specific sort of a, for instance, Family vs Duty bang, can spread his pool of resources between both, maybe trying to keep Family and Career at the risk of getting neither, or maybe prefering to play it more safely by choosing one over the other and concentrating his resources on that one?

At the very least, I think there's a use for simultaneous conflicts of the sort I narrated here: non-conflicting (with each other, of course) conflicts, that happen at the same time, have the same stakes and have the same base chance of success/failure. This way, the way the player spreads his resources between the various conflicts tells you exacly how much she cares for each one in relation to each other... at least in a perfect world where the player doesn't simply choose to divide the resources equally.

What do you think?

Okay, so now I can finally go back to Lisa's comments...

Lisa wrote:
6. BUT, there is an additional wrinkle here. Specifically, part of What is at Stake is: How much does the player care about the characters who are important to her character? At this point, the boundaries are getting seriously blurred, and I question to what degree you are playing PTA for this particular conflict.

Lisa wrote:
7. What, if anything, is a group supposed to do if everyone in the group agrees that the result of a conflict is wrong and makes for a less good show?

7A. I'm not sure if this is a side issue or if this is the main point of contention.