Things we did not according to the PtA rule set

We made some errors again. Different ones than the first time though:

1. We did not properly set up the scene with Agenda, Focus and Place...

2. We forgot that the player with the highest single card tells the output... Instead it was mostly the Producer.

3. The players' did not want to decide up front who would have a spotlight episode when. It seemed like that the want to grow the spotlight out organically. (That reminds me of the way I was very sceptical about the "unorganic" drama model in my first script writing course.)

4. I was really stupid to misinterpret the rules and tell the players that they could only spend on fan mail in each scene. I have no idea, where I picked that up. I reread the rulebook and it is definitely not the case...

Captain, my Captain s01e01 Scene Overview

Scene 1 (Producer): Plot
Cook and Assistant take over commando and tell about their ship from back in the Freedom Wars
Conflict: ?

Scene 2 (Tali's player): Character
Meeting of the protagonists in a small room to discuss what to do now
Conflict: Crew member Michael is sent to order them back and wants to convince them to cooperate
Outcome: The protagonists come along, although Waine stays in control of the situation and bullies Michael

Conflict ideas afterwards that would have been easier to integrate with the agenda given by the players: there would have been a NPC like Michael as part of the meeting and he would have discussed with them instead of giving orders

Scene 3 (Mafalda's player): Plot
The pilot tries to steer the ship dispite being drunk
Conflict: will she be able to take it to Zebulon
Outcome: she fails and it goes somewhere random

Scene 4 (Algernon's player): Plot
The ship comes out of hyperspace near a space station that is attacked by 2 pirate ships. It is on collision course.
Conflict: the cook-captain has post war trauma and tries to attack the space station, there will be people injuried
Outcome: they can't stop the cook and the Michael (scene 2) is killed in the crash as Waine is not able to save him
(Added scene: flashback to Waine's and Michael's happy times in the holo deck)

Scene 5 (Waine's player): Character
There is a space funeral for Michael.
Conflict: will the crew blame Waine for Michael's death? especially as he bullied him before?
Resolution: they don't blame Waine

Scene 6 (Producer): Plot
The Federation commander of the space station comes on board to find out who was guilty for the destruction
Conflict: will they offer the cook on a silver plate or play the card that they were able to scare of the pirates and therefore helped?
Resolution: they cook is blamed and receives the Collar of Punishment

Conflict ideas afterwards that would have been easier to integrate with the agenda given by the players: Tali's role as daughter would have been used, for example as an excuse...

Scene 7 (Tali's): Plot
Tali sneaks shape changed on board of the ship and seduces the captain of the station to steal data about the Captain James Herbert
Conflict: can she get the data while the captain wants her to "explore the galaxy"
Resolution: she can

Scene 8 (Mafalda's): Plot
Can Tali escapefrom the space station while Mafalda is able to start the ship despite her alcohol problem
Conflict: straight forward, action scene
Resolution: they can

New opened plot developments: what's really on Zebulon?, 2 space pirate ships running of, the cook's collar of punishment, the data from the Federation's space station

Old open plot thingies: the memory crystal with Tali spying on Algernon & Co.

ScratchPad

We played the first real episode of "Captain, My Captain" in a meeting room with a really cool gadget, a digital whiteboard. We saved it as a pdf, so I am not completely sure how to make it visible here.

Minigolf Family

I want to use this place to recommend the blog of a friend. She writes in German, but we will turn her adventures of the Minigolfkombinat into a Primetime Adventures show one day. I am sure about it.
She does a very different kind of role playing. Kind of live action role playing with some friends, where they always take the same roles as members of a family. In a way it can be defined as Augmented Reality gaming, as they play it while hanging out in bars or on real mini golf courses or just their living rooms.
Now she turned it to 11 by creating write ups of a fictional TV show based on their Mixed Reality LARP experience. Very interesting.
If you can read German, have a look!

PtA and Immersion

We played today episode 1 of "Captain, My Captain". Obvisously it turned out completely different, than I planned. We had really cool scenes, but did not go anywhere with the plot - just forcing a little bit of advancement in in the end.
But that is not what I am writing about here. This is more about the fact that one player said, he missed the immersion in the game. Okay, I am the Producer, so for me it is different, but I guess the point of PtA is that players and the Director are not that much different.
Because I was totally immersed into coming up with cool ideas. Okay that is something different than being immersed in character, but for me it feels the same. I want to do cool stuff with my character anyways.
I can't play shy or afraid characters, because that takes out the over the top madness, that I immerse into. If I create one liners for my specific character or for another one, does not matter, as long as I can enjoy creating them.
If my character jumps for a cool action scene feels the same as if I descripe another character's jump.
In that sense I guess PtA is perfect for me. I would just need players that feel the same. And I got some. :)

But maybe it is not even so much the contribution of narrative power that makes PtA different for some people but just the fact, that it is a conflict resolution, not a task resolution (I hope I use the terms right...).
I wonder if we could play with the very same narrative powers, but conflict resolution and how it would feel then.

A narratish challenge system

Inspired by 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons, a future challenge system could ask for a certain number of success by the group. A certain number of failures, would let them fail. This numbers don't have to be open to the players.
But instead of only taking into account sucessfull skill checks, there shoule also be a possibilty to manage the clever use of items. Basic manouvres like spillling perfume on a monster are maybe not handled by a skill check (although a trick out of Savage Worlds would work perfectly here), but by loosing of resources. The only question is, how abstract resources should be in this context.
She you literally use perfume from the character sheet, just improvize that this kind of character has perfume along or just tick off one (of for example three) abstract pieces of equipment or - even more abstract - uses of equipment.

Narrative about it is that the players themselves come up with skills to use. What counts is only the number of successes. Most of the rest is decided by the narratively empowered gamers.

A video blog?

I'd like to review games in English, like the Gamer Geek does. Because my native language is German and you here that when I speak English, why not make the bug a feature and call it "Ze German GameMeister" or something? Okay, I am not really German, but Austrian is a little bit to specific for all those English speakers out there, right?

Update: Actually in the mean time. Ze Austrian DungeonMaster has gotten a very strong meaning.

An RPG that pretends to be a board game

While there has been some examples of boardgames that have a strong RPG component all those examplaes I know are taking over the tactical/wargamy component of RPGs. My challenge would be to create a narrative board game. The most ovious influence would be PtA.
Actually the basic set up is quite easy: provide focus for a generic setting by having

• a board that probably can be put together different (for example single rooms)
• cards for character concepts
• even better: cards for character traits (following Spirit of the Century's aspects)
• give antagonist controll to the players: instead of a GM you maybe pass a Nemesis card who has to be the "enemy"
• have the players not only create their characters, but also the antagonists

So I would go for a specific setting (e.g. daily soaps or a space ship).

Captain, My Captain - Season Preview

After the first pilot, which actually was more or a less a teaser, I can already set up a rough sketch for a 5 episode season...

1x01 Legacy of the Freedom Wars

spotlight episodes

1x05 The Captain Election (and the return of the true captain)

Obviously we will have 3 spotlight episodes.

It is the player's choice when to set them, but I have some ideas based on their issues from the pilot:
Tali - Issue: "Who am I? Purpose?" She will encounter her alien mother, who is the evil leader of a cult or a space city or maybe a superspy. This can question if there is a purpose when you are willing to sacrifice the good of other people/ the masses.
Her life has purpose shifting the lifes of billions, but what has she become?

Waine - "want to be accepted by everyone for the genius I am": He gets the nomination for a major science price by a good organization. But to be able to achieve most, he would have to sacrifice his good name. A possible scenario would be that he could let someone steal a medication he invented to save millions of people but not get the fame for it or that it is used only in a corporate environment, humans perish, but he will be famous for doing it. (It would be more melodramatic if it was a clone that can heal instead of just a medication.)

Algernon: Actually his "humans are meaningless" would lead to a similar episode, where he a mob of really lowly scum (maybe refugees) come on board of the ship and maybe he has to adopt a kid or something similar. The kid could be affected by some sort of fast ageing that i goes through all phases of life in one episode. And in the end it is dead and all was in vain.

Obviously everything can change because of player input, but it is good to have a basic idea at hand, that builds on the issue.

The Dark Eye / Das Schwarze Auge

I posted this on the RPG.net forum, but because it is quite long, I copy and paste it here.

The fun part is that the rulebooks from the very beginning on introduced a "sticking to the rules is bad" mindset. Rule Zero deluxe. So while you have all these rules, nearly every writer for TDE will tell you, that they don't use them, because after all it is about RolEplaying and maybe they will even go so far to proudly explain that their last 3 session there was no single die rolled.
Still I got the impression that in the creation of 4th edition every freelance writer got to write a really small part of the rules all for themselves. Then all this stuff was meshed together. So even if you as writer for TDE actually love to write MarySueNPC adventures, fluff and metaplot (as it is your job most of the time), when you get the chance to contribute writing for the new upcoming 4th edition (and therefore designing rules), even if it is only the 2 pages on rules for Wish spells, you want to come up with some very clever and unique way to shine with your design. So you come up with something really complex and well thought out. But then there is a dozen of other unique snowflake designers who have a similar mindset and all their stuff is put together and sold as a ruleset...
The last paragraph is pure speculation, but that is the feeling I get from the rules, the imprint and reading a few interviews with TDE writers.

A good example is the player who told me that TDE was a better game, because when facing enemies his group would think instead of fight, because nobody was in the mood to play through one of these endless fights.
You know, a thinking man's game instead of on for rules lawyering power gamers...

The anti power game message was that strong since first edition, that I (as a 9 year old) completely understood that you should _never_ give any of the magic items in the rulebook out in the game. I never did. We enjoyed it anyways to play out dialogues in the taverns for hours. Really. I guess Ulrich Kiesow would have been proud of us.

Still I think that the background on gods and archdemons is really cool. Maybe too postmodern for a medival mindset, but it really rocks that the banned and hunted gods of the lizards and dragons are most probably the same as the human gods in the end and that the difference between god and archdemon is are mostly in the eye of the beholder.
I also fall for the forgotten ages shtick with TDE, which is quite an achievement as nowadays-after having seen it dozens of times in other games/stories-I should get totally bored by it.

Generally the mysteries of the setting are the place where the game shines. I don't know exactly how they pull that off as there are for sure some cliches recycled.

So some parts of the background is really good and next to that all the region sourcebooks of the 4th edition have no rules in it (just some npc statblocks in the end) and are more than able to compete with Green Ronin's Freeport - if you can read German.

My RPG Calender 2008

While looking for a useful widget to put a real calendar here, i just add my RPGing of 2008 manually. Later on I guess, I will also add meetings with people for the sole purpose of setting something up.
The star rating indicates how much fun I had subjectively. ***** is for a future event that will kill me, because it is so good. ;) Fun obviously depends on lots of factors. Even with the greatest GM if the interaction with other players does not work out, I won't have lots of fun. Or if another player has all focus in a specific game session, it may be egoistic but I won't enjoy it so much. Also short sessions around 2 hours, most of the time can't build up to the highest fun level.
Also if I GM it could be awful and totally boring for the players and the stars here would just represent that I as GM had fun.


2008

January
-

February
-

March
1st Call of Ctulhu: Leprecon One Shot - 4,5 hours - 6 players and GM Mike Mason ***
11th Primetime Adventures: Gilgamesh Pilot - 3 hours - 3 players and me as Director ****

April
24th Primtime Adventures: Captain, My Captain 1: Failjumps - 3 hours - Jorg;And,Ser,Vla,Dan **

May
15th Captain, My Captain 2: The Black Hole Navigator - 3 hours - 3 players and me as Director ***
28th D&D3.5 1: To the Goblin mines - 4 hours - Tom;Man,Dan,Jor ***

June
5th Captain, My Captain 3: Under Zebulon - 4 hours - 3 players and S.G. as Director ***
9th D&D3.5 2: Prisoners in the mines - 2,5 hours - 3 players and T.H. as GM *
19th Captain, My Captain 4: The Holodeck Cure - 3 hours - 3 players and V.F. as Director ***
23rd Captain, My Captain 5: Neither Love Nor Gas - 4,5 hours - 3 players and me as Director ***
26th Savage Worlds: Trial chargen and combat - 3,5 players and V.F. as GM **

July
16th D&D3.5 3: Nylo's fire powers - 2 hours - 3 players and T.H. as GM *
18th Savage Worlds: Hungary 1820 - 4 hours - 4 players and V.F. as GM **
29th D&D3.5 4: The city is burning! - 2,5 hours - 3 players and T.H. as GM ***

August
6th D&D3.5 5: City Business - 2,5 hours - 3 players and T.H. as GM ***
17th Savage Worlds: Luftenwelter 1: The Abduction of Lydia - 6 hours - Ser;Dan,Vla,Jor ****
20th Luftenwelter 2: A Pirate's Farewell - 3,5 hours - Ser;Dan,Vla,Jor ****
29th Luftenwelter 3: The Caravan & the Bear - 2,5 hours - Ser;Vla,Jor ***

Sept
11th Luftenwelter 4: The Ambush - 3 hours - Ser;Vla,Jor ***
19th d20systemless 1: The Castle Rock Conspiracy - 3 hours - Tom;Jor,Man,Ami ***
26th d20systemless 2: Getting away with knowledge ****

Oct
2nd d20systemless 3: An evening in the internet café ****
3rd Luftenwelter 5: The missing guards ***
09th Synnibarr: Dusk on the volcanic island - 3,5 hours - Jor;And,Vla,Ser **
10th Luftenwelter 6: Shieldbreakers in the treasury ***
21st Serenity/Firefly: Character Generation - 1 hour - Ser;Jor,Dan
23rd Serenity/Firefly: Motherload **
24th d20systemless: Bloodbath 4: Escape and the Captain ***
30th Serenity/Firefly: Motherload II ***

Nov
4th Luftenwelter 7: On a pirate ship - 2 hours - Ser;Vla,Jor,Dan ***
6th D&D3.5: Nyrondria 6: The druid sleeps with the horses - 2,5 hours - Tom;Ami,Man,Jor,Dan ***
13th Luftenwelter 8: Drinks & Desini (formerly "Finding Desini")- 4,5 hours - Ser;Vla,Jor,Dan ****
25th Luftenwelter 9: The Escape Debacle - 3,5 hours - Ser;Vla,Jor,Dan ***
29th Luftenwelter 10: Talking to Pirates - 2,5 hours - Ser;Vla,Jor,Dan **

Dec
8th Luftenwelter 11: The Schnitzeljagd - 3,5 hours - Ser;Vla,Jor,Dan ****
15th Nyrondria 7: The Ambushes of Anros - 3 hours - Tom;Man,Dan,Jor
16th Luftenwelter 12: Snakes vs. Pirates - 4 hours - Ser;Vla,Jor,Dan

So in the end I played 35 times (+ one creation session I have in the calendar).
I am quite sure I will add some nice pie charts here soon. :)

My RPG Calendar 2009