[PtA] How are the narrative authorities working in this scene?
Arturo G.:
Tempus Fugit, Episode one
The group of players is the same.
About Alfredo's issue, Ron was right. It started as an issue but I developed it into a goal immediately. I rewrote it as something that may be translated as "Delusion, or to be in Denial". Alfredo has a real problem to accept the consequences of his acts. Does it sound more like an issue?
In this episode Vincenzo had screen presence 1, Lucrezia 2 and Alfredo 3. They convinced me that it was appropriate to focus on Alfredo in the first regular episode, to develop him and his further relationship with the team.
This time we were veeery careful not to fix any plot details before play. We only determined (again by group discussion) that it was more interesting for us if they were not coming back directly to the head-quarters. We determined a history-period: Ancient Rome. During play we discovered it was the republic period, during Octavio's rise (mainly determined by the producer when framing and playing several scenes).
Before the scene
The characters appear inside the Sacra-Sanctorum of a temple in ancient Rome. Later, Enzo will explain that something has gone bad, probably due to the presence of Alfredo in the time-door.
During the first scenes there were a couple of them showing a confrontation between Vincenzo and Alfredo. First physically (Alfredo wanted Vincenzo's gun to take control of the weird situation) and second due to ideology, during a short stay in Tarpeia (jail).
Vincenzo wanted to convince the team to come back home, where they would be safe, leaving Alfredo behind. From his point of view he was only a war criminal or something similar (the amount of hits and slaps he had already received from him in the past and present episode were surely helping). He also wanted to avoid giving Alfredo any explanation about the time travel. But Lucrezia convinced Vincenzo that it was more dangerous to leave Alfredo there with the possibility to alter history. Enzo also added it could be also technically necessary to bring him, as he had altered the time continuous and bla...bla... After some explanations Alfredo associated the strange time-travel technology with the esoteric secret experiments promoted by Hitler. Thus, he was proud to know it was Italian technology.
They tried the time jump to flee Tarpeia, but they were not yet able to control the time-travel technology with Alfredo inside the door. Alfredo was lost. He appeared alone again in the temple, short time before.
He met the High-Priest who suspected him to be at the service of Octavio. Octavio was going to come into Rome the day after to celebrate a triumph. As Alfredo detected a high political tension between these two leaders he thought on trying to exploit it.
The other characters appeared not so far from the temple and had a hard time trying to flee. After some action scenes they managed to flee and recover the picture. The day after, they attended the Triumph to seek for Alfredo. During the Triumph, Alfredo managed to participate on an important place, even helping on the sacrifice of the white bull, being in the top of the stairs, near to Octavio when the population was acclaiming him. The team was really worried about what could Alfredo do if getting a political position in Rome.
In the next scenes Alfredo wanted mainly to show to himself that his political ideas and his Italian-glory dream could leave a real mark on history. During the party in the palace, he talked with a young Julio Cesar and instructed him about some National Socialist related ideas, teaching him a few key points about how to control and extent his future empire. A hard conflict that he won.
The rest of the characters sent a token to Alfredo (a modern bullet) and managed to get an audience with him during the big parties. Alfredo in the meanwhile heard Octavio and the High-Priest talking. Their spies knew about the chat with Julio Cesar, and his suggestions to take the Imperium. They were really worried and ordered to kill Alfredo immediately. The gladiator Maximo-Decimo-Bruto started to seek for him in the palace. Alfredo hid on a private chamber waiting for the team members to come to help him. Roma politics seemed to much for him to stay. After leaving his seed in Julio Cesar his major concern was to flee.
The scene frame
Proposal: By the producer. Focus: Plot.
Agenda: It this scene the other main characters arrive at the palace room to try to meet Alfredo, but Maximo is around.
Producer frames: One of the big rooms of the palace, full of people enjoying the party. Alfredo is looking through a the lattice of the private-chamber door. The guard that was sent to bring the team members is entering through another far door with the other characters behind. The guard does not know where Alfredo is and starts to call him in very loud voice.
Action
Alfredo was opening the door and showing himself, trying to get the attention of the team. But the producer introduced that Maximo, who was searching for Alfredo spotted him and started to walk in his direction.
Luis asked for a conflict to notice the dangerous situation before anyone. Using his Police edge, he won the conflict and also narrated how he noticed.
Then, Vincenzo tried to also shout and do weird things to attract attention and create some confusion. His purpose was to make Lucrezia and Enzo miss what was going on. He wanted to give time to the gladiator to kill Alfredo. Vincenzo was very angry about Alfredo's background and behavior. Seeing him as a real menace for all.
This went immediately to a multi-part conflict. We discussed about the exact terms and finally it was like this:
Luis, as I wrote previously. Ruth wanted to be on time (she or Enzo) to catch the gladiator before he reached Alfredo. To do it, she said that Lucrezia was trying to use her authority to stop Vincenzo's efforts to create confusion.
My real objective was to make Lucrezia and Enzo feel that they were also in danger, as Alfredo, and that he was somehow part of the team. But as this was more or less granted and there was a real threat, I changed the purpose to avoid the gladiator sneaking and join the other main characters.
There was some fan-mail around and Alfredo had pretty good chances to avoid the gladiator in one way or another. But we failed. I got like 6 black cards, Ruth also black cards. The producer one red (the highest), but Luis two or three. The producer narrated how Vincenzo was distracting the other characters and how the gladiator was pressing Alfredo to the door of the private chamber, stabbing him three times with his gladius, throwing it to the floor and leaving quickly. Alfredo was badly/deadly wounded.
Enzo started to shout that someone had killed his grandfather (he was worried also about the time-continuos and bla..bla...), calling the guard and trying to find and catch the murderer. Lucrezia tried to stop him to avoid creating more troubles. It derived in a conclict that Ruth won. She also narrated how Lucrezia was talking and convincing Enzo to get worry not about the murderer, but about trying to save Alfredo's life. It was urgent to time-travel to find a hospital.
I cannot remember if we changed to another scene here or it was the same one. I would say that Luis reacted saying that Vincenzo was surely getting the opportunity to take Alfredo's body into the private chamber and be alone with him. We all tought he wanted to finish Alfredo. The situation was so interesting that nobody said anything and nobody asked for a conflict here.
Vincenzo took Alfredo alone and there was a nice narration when he was shaking the wounded Alfredo, shouting terrible things about Alfredo's political ideas, prosecutions, executions, war crimes and whatever. He wanted him to recognize it and be ashamed. I had previously the idea that Alfredo had not really participated in most of those things, especially the worst ones. But if he had done anything, he was in complete denial of all that now. He was just spitting blood and proudly saying he was not having any idea of what Vincenzo was talking about. He preferred to die than to admit any of those crimes. It was a tense moment. We really didn't know what was going to do Luis.
But he decided that Vincenzo was not killing Alfredo. The other members where near to enter the room and his best interest was not really to kill him. But to avoid him try to influence Enzo with his doctrines. It was so appropriate that I think I accepted without a conflict that Alfredo was promising it (we will see what a promise of Alfredo worths in the following episodes).
After the scene
The rest was just the epilogue. The other characters entered the room. They activated the time-travelling mechanisms and left Rome, with an unknown destination.
Ron Edwards:
Hi Arturo,
I'll have to go over the post in more detail later, but for now, here's one thing: denial isn't the character's issue, it's his problem. The issue could be any one of Truth, Judgment, or Responsibility.
I suggest that if you stay with "denial," then you'll be playing a robot who simply keeps denying. Are you sure you're really playing a protagonist that you care about and that others might care about? Or are in you GM mode, making sure that there's adversity within the team?
Best, Ron
Arturo G.:
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I'll have to go over the post in more detail later, but for now, here's one thing: denial isn't the character's issue, it's his problem. The issue could be any one of Truth, Judgment, or Responsibility.
Yes, you are right. When I was writing about it the the key for the issue was in the second sentence. It is Responsibility. Denial is the problem. In part due to a non-accurate Spanish translation of the term "issue" we always have troubles with expressing it properly.
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I suggest that if you stay with "denial," then you'll be playing a robot who simply keeps denying.
Right. No problem. I want to explore what is he going to do when denial/delusion cannot be sustained and he needs to face his responsibilities. I will need to do it on the episodes with Screen Presence 2, as I have already spent the focus episode more or less "presenting his problem".
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Are you sure you're really playing a protagonist that you care about and that others might care about? Or are in you GM mode, making sure that there's adversity within the team?
About this, I'm not completely sure, because you know it is quite easy for me to do it without noticing. However, the other players does not have such a feeling. During the start of the episode I enjoyed to create a tense relationship between Alfredo and Vincenzo. I thought it would be interesting and it will help to give Alfredo a continuous contrast with his delusion. It was Luis the first one insisting in using Vincenzo to remind him about his responsibilities during the 2nd World War.
After that, specially after Alfredo accepted the leadership of Lucrezia, I was not promoting the opposition anymore. I was concentrated on playing against the problems introduced by the producer. It was a surprise for me (and for the others) when Luis made Vincenzo react in such a visceral way during the last scenes. Anyway, I found it so unexpected and fun that I mainly followed his ideas. I think we are both happy with the status of our characters relationship.
What it is worrying me is if we were focusing in this opposition too much instead of looking for it outside of the player-characters cast. And if this is the case, why? Perhaps, I'm feeling a lack of more recurring supporting characters. I cannot say.
Ron Edwards:
Hi Arturo,
Before I talk about your session, I am forced to comment on how obnoxious your character is! Moreno, are you reading this? It also strikes me as important that this game is being played by citizens of the nation which endured the longest-lasting Fascist regime in Europe. But now I am getting distracted.
It's probably time to review the meanings of Situation and Plot Authority, as I conceived them. Perhaps the names can be clarified.
Situation: getting substantive content into the SIS before and leading up to crisis-decision points (for anyone, GM included). It's useful to consider this idea at different scales - (a) the level of the episode as a whole, (b) at the level of scene-framing, and (c) at the point of conflict initiation within scenes. Authority for Situation is often shared, in a back-and-forth exchange of "this happens, what do you do; I do this; in that case, this happens next" that's familiar to most role-players ... although its failure is perhaps even more familiar.
Plot: the input which closes the outcomes of the crisis situations which are set up via Situation Authority, and therefore it occurs as an ongoing, organic personal interaction with the mechanics of resolving conflicts, resolving scenes, and introducing consequences.
I realize that this terminology is different from "plot" in pre-existing media. That's on purpose. Plot Authority in role-playing is nothing like final-cut authority for film, or finished-manuscript authority for prose. The reason for this is that the very notion of plot itself has to be revised for Story Now role-playing. In all other story-oriented media, the creation of plot and the experience of plot are wholly separated into two parts, creation and reception. In that context, "plot" is a distinct thing which hovers between the two, untouched - "text," in modern academic jargon. However, in the medium of role-playing, in which SIS is both modeling clay and sculpture at the same time, plot cannot be thought of as the totality of the fiction any more. You can't consult it or look at it as a whole; it emerges only during parts of play, and furthermore those parts are strung along a linear sequence of the play-experience. There is no point during Story Now play during which the entirety of the plot may be said to be established.
Here are some thoughts about the authorities in your overall session.
CONTENT
Content Authority is, at the highest level, combined: the players contribute at the very least through having made up their characters, and the Producer, in this case, does so via choosing the setting for the episode. In this particular series, each choice of time-period is a very big deal. This particular authority is easy to understand for this episode, I think.
SITUATION (REMEMBER, AT DIFFERENT LEVELS AND IN SEQUENTIAL PIECES)
At the highest level, the players have significant input for Situation because of their original choices for Screen Presence. The Producer has a lot of powerful Situation Authority at the level of scene-creation and to a certain shared degree, conflict-creation, but the Screen Presence and particularly Spotlight status of the protagonists is the "guiding light" for all such decision-making.
So taking both player and Producer decision-making into account, the Situation for the entire episode is that Vincenzo gets loose in ancient Rome and causes both temporal and moral crises, based on his heinous world-view. To bump it down into the scene creation level, and specific-conflict level, it's clear that Situation Authority is definitely shared and even piecemeal in PTA: (a) Alfredo's candidacy for assassination is the Producer's doing, and (b) his being faced with a stern moral objection specifically from someone who can save him is a player's doing.
Situation Authority was a blend, exactly as written in PTA: mainly by Producer, but elaborated upon by the player's responses:
1. The separation among team members to isolate Alfredo: Producer
2. The nasty impact Alfredo might have on history: Player (you)
3. The assassination threat: Producer
4. The moral confrontation: Player (Luis)
This blend also occurs within scenes, which I think your group is still struggling with.
DISTRACTED AGAIN
Quote
After leaving his seed in Julio Cesar ...
I had to look over this section again to make sure I wasn't misunderstanding, and fortunately, I was. Here's one of those translation moments again – that phrasing is unintentionally hilarious in English, particularly with that historical personage. Anyway, back to business.
TROUBLE WITH SITUATION
I think that your group still struggles with Situation Authority within scenes, specifically about one of the most problematic elements of role-playing: where each characters stands in that immediate situation, in space. It's problematic because historically, such positioning has always been crucial regarding character options. You can't "run up and hit him" unless you are standing within so many hexes away. You can't talk to someone without fear of being interrupted unless you can establish that every other character can't get to you.
When your player-characters are separated from one another, then Situation Authority flows smoothly in the GM-player-GM-player PTA way, producing interesting and exciting situations, but whenever all your player-characters are together, things get confused. People start proposing conflicts about what is being noticed, and whether one or two characters can separate themselves from the others. It reminds me very strongly of the cacophony that can appear in traditional fantasy role-playing, when the GM says, "There's a shadowy, tentacled shape approaching down the corridor, about fifty feet ahead of you." People start yelling about "can they see it," or whether someone else can or can't see it, or whether they're not really in the thing's direct line of sight, or who's got which weapon ready, or how their character would necessarily have been investigating the nearby alcove instead of walking with the others, and God knows what else. Your group has a tendency to call card-based conflicts in order to establish all these details.
For instance, there is no reason why the final Alfredo-Vincenzo dialogue could not have been conducted in front of the other characters. It would not have been altered mechanically in any way.
I will be bold and make a suggestion for all you. First, more often than not, but especially in PTA, all conflicts “to notice” suck. Noticing can easily be factored into a post-draw narration to establish how things occurred, or it can be part of situational framing - it doesn't have to be anything else. The same applies to all talk of who “distracts” whom. Focus on what conflicts of interest are occurring and let the cards be about that; all else, in this game, is colored in as needed, before or after.
It seems to me that Pablo did a good job of realizing this, as he made sure that the cards addressed specifically whether Alfredo was hurt.
PLOT (REMEMBER, IN SEQUENTIAL PIECES)
I think that your group illustrated some excellent understanding of how Plot Authority is distributed in playing PTA. Specifically, the cards matter - they decisively close the conflicts which have been formed like crystals in the liquid solutions of situations. Also, and more subtly, the use of the cards is also subject to judgment, such that a particular point can be made without them as well. That occurs, in this game, when a person decides that the play up to this point has already satisfactorily produced Plot.
To summarize the Plot Authorities:
Vincenzo is prevented from integrating into ancient Rome: Producer with Player approval (i.e. you did not announce a conflict but had Alfredo decide to flee with the team)
Vincenzo suffers physically: System, Players, Producer-narration
Vincenzo faces moral censure: Players (specifically you, as you did not call for conflict)
SOME CLOSING THOUGHTS
Another way to look at Situation is the proposing of a question, and Plot as the current answer to the question. The structure of a season in PTA is built specifically for this purpose. Regarding Alfredo's Spotlight episode, and keeping in mind that it is actually the beginning of the season rather than (for instance) the final episode, here is my thematic interpretation of its Plot. Vincenzo suffers for his sins, both physically and socially (i.e. another person’s judgment). He has discovered that he cannot control time and history with impunity. He is in physical pain, rendering him dependent upon others, and has had truth, including contempt for him personally, spoken to his face. This time, he cannot simply smirk and get away with it. No matter what, all further decisions he makes during this Season will be derived from these results. As I see it, your show Tempus Fugit is saying that not even mastery over time can override morality. Your characters' power and freedom, relative to all other living persons, makes them more subject to moral considerations (specifically those concerning nationalism and bigotry) rather than less.
Your group's decisions about and use of Plot Authority are what brought this theme into existence for this episodes. The group's decisions and use of Situation Authority are what made Plot Authority powerful and interesting.
Let me know if I'm understanding the circumstances of play and whether my discussion of the various Authorities is making sense. To a great extent, this thread is helping me to work out and articulate my own outlook as well, so we should consider it a dialogue rather than instruction.
Best, Ron
Moreno R.:
Quote from: Ron Edwards on September 08, 2008, 07:52:58 AM
Moreno, are you reading this?
Yes. I think that the problem with that character is that is in a PTA game. In other games, there would not be anything so "wrong" in that character that a column of two "aces" couldn't solve. Permanently. ;-)
This was the first thing that I thought. From this, I began to think about "safe play", PTA, plot authority given to a player over a character over a single point (in PTA, with the changing - or not - of the issue in the spotlight episode, for example. That is the precise reason because I would not want that character in my PTA games, by the way) above any other rule of the game. But for now is only a mass of disconnected thoughts, I am not sure that this thread is a good place for it, or if it's better to create another thread (or more than one), and I was waiting for Arturo's reply to see the direction he want to take this thread...
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