After playing quite a few PTA one-shots and having a grand ole time at it, we've finally sat down to play a PTA season and I get to play, rather than Produce.

Wow, it is a different animal with, if possible, even more awesome packed in.

My Cannibal School Marm started off the episode with her Issue as How do I deal with the barbarity of the culture where I came from? to becoming the Queen of the Cannibals and changing her issue to How can I integrate my people into society?

Awesome.

"Next Week On..." is powerful, powerful shit.  That is no joke, man.  That is every player authoring some powder-keg awesome right into the next show.  Bret, our Producer, has given some really amazing contributions with this nifty toy that I really didn't give its proper respect upon reading it but have really come to love in play.

I've been a fan of PTA for a good while and due to school schedules, starting games with friends from outta town and this and that have not been able finish up a whole season and now that we're one episode in with no plans of stopping, I'm pretty stoked and falling in love all over again.

"Next Week On..." is powerful, powerful shit.

Matt wrote:

"Next Week On..." is powerful, powerful shit.

Hey, thanks for saying so! I've always felt really good about Next Week On as a game concept, but Fan Mail tends to capture the limelight.

I concur.  Fan Mail is cool... but I've seen its like before... in my homebrews... in other games.  Not suggesting that we should take away Fan Mail Love... just that "Next Week On..." really is the mechanic that has made my eyebrows raise, and totally grab me.

Makes me want to come back to the table the NEXT night, not wait a week!

Judd is right, a couple of fuel hot injections of Next Week have really carried the game.  I wish I could say I've come up with some of the good stuff, but it really has been the others in the group. 

Storn wrote:
  I wish I could say I've come up with some of the good stuff, but it really has been the others in the group. 

Nature of being an artist, I think. 

I am being hard on myself.  But I feel that when it comes to my turn to frame the scene, I tend to do very "internal" scenes designed to ratchet subplots up... but not really create conflict in the here and now.  Not quite as supportive of the other players at the table, not hitting their issues with a hammer through the lens of my character.

Bret's Next Week On have been homeruns two eps running.  Jeff's 'I can offer you the world..." was a homerun too.  I sorta feel like I've hit singles.

Not that I don't contribute at the table.  No, I'm too much of a loudmouth for that.  But when it comes to utilizing the mechanic that we were specifically speaking of, the Next Week On... I've been producing lukewarm scenes.  That's all.  Being self-critical... but I'm not beating myself up.  Just want to do better, that's all.

Thanks Storn, I'm glad you dig what I'm throwing out there. All I do when I'm coming up with my "Next time" is look at the spotlight character's issue, their nemesis, and then just try and come up with a scene where those things are going to just explode. Honestly I thought my "Next week" for this upcoming episode was a little off because it didn't hit on Rion's Issue in a really satisfying way, but I'm not going to get too worked up about it.

And next week is nobody's spotlight episode, so I'm just going to try and come up with something as crazy as possible. :)