I'm not actually sure this is a problem, but I'm curious to know what folks think.

In the second session of Keruton, Matt Stevens joined up and we worked with him on a character, including the idea of Personal Set. For Keruton, it's his dreams. For Firemaker, it's lighting a cigarette dramatically. For Mist, it's sticking one arm up a sleeve to do magic. Magic is one of Mist's traits.

For Matt's PC, Honggong, Avram suggested the personal set be the character's motorcycle. That way, when Stunt Driving involves the motorcycle, he explained, use of the trait is effectively free. Note that I said that Stunt Driving also applied to things like flying planes, which clearly do not get a free recharge, as they don't involve the motorcycle.

Is this actually a problem? It's the same situation with Mist and her magic, at least when the magic involves the pulling something from or putting something in a sleeve. It's just that no one said, and possibly no one thought, "Oh, this is a cool way to get a constant recharge."

And, in play, it didn't hurt things. Quite the contrary, as it means people don't have to say, "Oh dear, I don't know if I can afford to use X trait. I might need it more later."

Avram, who suggested the idea, plays Keruton, who has only recharged once each session. It hasn't made sense to bring the nightmares up more often. He also winds up with the most fan mail. He's very good at maximizing what he's got, and the once-per-session recharge doesn't seem to have hurt him.

Matt, on the other hand, was new to PTA, and not sure of this game. Having one useful, but not overwhelming trait that could often recharge as it was being used was probably helpful.

-Lisa

You only get one recharge per session. 

Actually, I seem to remember Matt saying that you could get multiple scenes from your set in an episode, but that other players were perfectly within their rights to mock you if you abuse it.

The point of the personal set is insight into the character. How have any of these worked in play so far?

Dreams I'll buy without question. But has "I sometimes have an arm up my sleeve" proved insightful? Color me skeptical, or does it tie into something deeper I don't know about?

I'm pretty sure that I read a Personal Set can only be used as a "recharge" once per session as well.

Also, the way I understood Personal Sets, they're used as a cue to other players that you're using the scene for character development and should be engineered with this in mind. The way the game is written, they could easily just be used as a "power-up" but I think it's sort of missing the point. I mean, if Matt is planning on really fleshing his character out in these motorcycle scenes and using them to tell us more about Honggong, then that's really neat. But if it's just to get a "free trait" that's really lame.

IIRC, personal sets only work when you 'start a scene in it'.
We discussed this in the past, and one very popular idea emerging was that personal sets just don't need to be actual physical places but also habits (e.g. praying) or narrative techniques (e.g. a flashback to the character's past).
But the main point is, you have to devote one of your precious opportunities to frame a scene to depicting the 'personal set' if you want to have the mechanical advantage.
So, I don't get the 'free-trait' situation at all. Perhaps I'm wrong (and I only own the 1st edition of the rules), but I think this is a mechanically wrong procedure in first place...

Just want to make an addendum to my post: Sorry if that came off as harsh, I know that Matt's new to the game. It just seems to me like there's too great an emphasis on the use of the Personal Set to refresh a trait, and not enough on its use to say, "Hey, we're going to learn something about my character here."

I want to underscore what Matt said. It's about insight and drama, not character effectiveness. If your personal set easily gives you an extra trait use, but is not insightful or dramatically interesting, you wasted it. Pick something else.

My favorite example of a personal set is Crocketts Ferrari Daytona from the early seasons of Miami Vice.
Every couple of episodes provided an extended sequence of a Brooding Crockett driving the Ferrari at night struggling to deal with "yet another horrible emotional event" while the rock ballad du jour played in the background.

Throughout those seasons you always new when Crockett was close to the snapping point whenever he took the Ferrari out for a midnight cruise.

Even though there were numerous car chases and other scenes featuring the car in the show...these specific sequences would be the only ones that IMO would qualify as a use of the personal set.  The personal set wasn't "the Ferrari".  It was "Driving the Ferrari alone at night while rock ballads play in the back ground".

I think a similar approach to the motorcycle would work well for your game.

The personal set might not be "the motorcycle" but "cruising along an abandoned stretch of beach throwing up spray from the surf" or some other repeatable bit of imagery appropriate to the character.

BlackSheep wrote:
Actually, I seem to remember Matt saying that you could get multiple scenes from your set in an episode, but that other players were perfectly within their rights to mock you if you abuse it.

Matt wrote:
The point of the personal set is insight into the character. How have any of these worked in play so far?

Dreams I'll buy without question. But has "I sometimes have an arm up my sleeve" proved insightful? Color me skeptical, or does it tie into something deeper I don't know about?

Valamir wrote: Even though there were numerous car chases and other scenes featuring the car in the show...these specific sequences would be the only ones that IMO would qualify as a use of the personal set.  The personal set wasn't "the Ferrari".  It was "Driving the Ferrari alone at night while rock ballads play in the back ground".

I think a similar approach to the motorcycle would work well for your game.

The personal set might not be "the motorcycle" but "cruising along an abandoned stretch of beach throwing up spray from the surf" or some other repeatable bit of imagery appropriate to the character.

I'd love to read some Actual Play write-ups of your game sometime, Lisa.

Bret wrote: I'd love to read some Actual Play write-ups of your game sometime, Lisa.