[Primetime Adventures] pre-game killing game?
Dionysus:
Howdy all.
I finally convinced my mates to try out something other than WoD/Exalted. So yay for primetime adventures....
But I'm gettting a sinking feeling that the pilot episode is going to be a disaster...
The brainstorming session we had led us to develop a sci-fi ish story. Something along the lines of battlestar galactica/macross. Interstellar human civilisation, planetary politics in the background - secret war against aliens etc, all set on a long range patrol ship. We have so far the mechanic (things break, people die, but not on my watch), a fanatic political/religious officer (Heresy must be contained), a paranoid security officer (I KNOW there is a traitor on board), a xenobiologist (this would taste excellent with some red wine), and a grouchy old medic (I'll retire when i drop dead).
Everyone was excited and really into the whole "making a TV series" and having the freedom to drive the story in the game.
...
Then for the last week two of my players have been literally statting out the starship's technical specifications, weight of the engine, fuel types, amount of thrust gerated in newtons and energy requirement to generate that thrust. I mean in intricate scientific details! To the point where one player was so intimidated by it that she decided to become a xenobiologist (rather than her original idea of engineer).
I (and a few of the players) wanted a story game to get away from the intricate mechanics and convoluted "canon" that required reading multiple rulebooks or memorising pages of facts. And then we get some players trying to inundate the game with convoluted/conplex scientific "canon".
sigh.
Any advise on how to get things back on track? I want all my players to enjoy this, and not get scared away (especially since I will have two new players who have never actually RP'd before...)
Kentsu
Judd:
Specs, blueprints, fuel type, etc. is all fine until someone tries to use it to refute someone else's narration.
Then (or perhaps before then) I would remind the players that the blueprints have no mechanical teeth, but the player with the high card has narration and their narration can over-ride any away-from-the-table froofery.
Moreno R.:
My advice is that you shouldn't worry too much about that. Having some player that can suggest that kind of color can be a useful thing during a game.
The point is, though, that that kind of detail should be used for color, to give texture and "reality" to the setting, and should be freely shared with the other characters. In Paka's example, if the player with the high card make some technical error in his description, these players should help him with suggestion about how what he want to narrate could be possible
Thaese details should not be used as a "weapon" against the other players.
But, I repeat, don't worry: PTA is self-corrective about this: no amount of detail can add even a 0.0001% chance to win a conflict. The only thing that can give you more "influence" in the story is fan mail. If these players will use that knowledge to create fun situations for everybody, they will be awarded with fan mail. If not, they will not get fan mail and if they are at least half witted they will quickly understand that they should change their ways if they want to get some.
You will not have to "repress" anything. All you have to do is trust the game system and let it work..
Zamiel:
Quote from: Paka on June 16, 2009, 02:16:54 AM
Specs, blueprints, fuel type, etc. is all fine until someone tries to use it to refute someone else's narration.
Then (or perhaps before then) I would remind the players that the blueprints have no mechanical teeth, but the player with the high card has narration and their narration can over-ride any away-from-the-table froofery.
Then I'd subtly make sure the xenobio "managed" to win narration in a story-critical scene involving technical specifications and casually say, "Oh, by the way, everything works exactly the way you say it does, right this moment." A little subtle card manipulation should do the trick nicely ...
But here's my question. Who in the name of Hades Below put into the tech-head guys' minds that spec'ing out the whole starship would even be useful in PTA? Seriously. Once you guys had settled on the pitch, you should have leapt into episode #1 / the pilot with both feet, at a running pace. That's one of the reason the system is designed as it is, so you can do that, because the more distance between the pitch and Scene One, the less attachment any of your players will have to the story-as-conceived. You know their issues, you got their edges, now get in there and push hard on them. What they're doing right now sounds like what they're doing instead of playing, not in addition to.
You've got two real problems:
The tech heads are under the perverse delusion they're doing something meaningful. This is easy to correct; get into play, win narration as the Director and point out that anything not agreed on in the premise is narratively pliable, and twiddle something.You didn't get to the game, so now some players are playing their own game. Less amenable to retrofitting, sadly.
Because I'm a glorious bastard (and because almost none of the characters' concepts hinge on technical issues anyway) I'd probably work on focusing the first few eps with Directorial buy-in and framing toward social / cultural / political issues. Hopefully your ex-engineer-cum-xenobiologist has a character ep in the first few, because that's going to be a fairly important thing there.
Once what's important in PTA mechanical interface is more obvious, I don't think you'll have much more issue with any of it. The tech-heads can scribble as much as they want, but when the cards hit the table, high numbers win. (Plus they've given you an obvious way to manipulate them into conflicts; threaten their exo-canon. :))
Dionysus:
I realise fully that all the "tech-spec" stuff has no real teeth in the game. In fact pretty much every time they come down to chat (we work in the same building) about these facts and ask my opinion I say "its irrelevant".
We're going to have our pilot episode tomorrow afternoon, so I'll see how it goes.
I feel I will need to help the players get the characters more in line with the game, as some feel subtly "off".
eg
Security Chief
Issue: Revealing the traitor
- Functional Paranoid
- Massive combat experience
- Underworld ally(s)
Chief Doctor
Issue: getting old; forced retirement
- Jaded
- Always working
- Bigoted against cyborgs (even minor cybernetics)
Freelance Mechanic:
Issue: Something broke. People died.
- Inventive
- Doesn’t quite trust his own abilities
- Gallows humour
Church Chaplain:
Issue: Weeding out heresies
- Turned his own family over to the Inquisition
- Emotionally closed off
- Can read people like books
Xenobiologist
Issue: Too trusting
- specialist in terraforming/viral threats
- Believes that sentient aliens are out there
- People make fun of her beliefs/publications about alien intelligence
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